What is a Vegan wine?

Whether you have chosen to be vegan for environmental and health reasons or you are getting involved in Veganuary this year, we are happy to tell you that all of our wines and Jakes Drinks range are 100% Vegan.

That means that no animal products were used in our wine, cider and beer production process. If you are unsure of how an agricultural product made from grapes, could use animal products during some key winemaking processes, then keep reading, as we explain.

First lets look at FINING.

In some wineries they like using a fining agent such as egg white, gelatine or isinglass (a protein found in fish air bladders), to bind with unwanted particles which could include tannins and phenolics. The idea of this process is to help clarify and stabilise the wine. For us, we choose to ‘cold settle’ instead. That means we chill down the juice, which is in a temperature controlled tank to 5°C. As the liquid chills, the particles fall to the bottom of the tank. We are then able to ‘rack’ off the clear wine away from the sediment that has precipitated out. Racking is just a posh word for moving wine from one tank to another.

The second process is called FILTRATION.

The majority of our wines are filtered. After fermentation, it is normal for a wine to have sediment and yeast floating around. The filtration wine process is key to stabilizing the wine and making the wine look more polished. Therefore we choose to filter using Diatomaceous earth. Diatoms are shells from the past. We can use both course and fine earth depending on the cloudiness of the wine and for what our desired final wine style is.