Is wine vegan?

A growing number of people are choosing to live vegetarian or even vegan for either the ethical or health benefits but this is leading to a lot of serious looking into everyday foods and drinks.  Wine would seem vegan at first glance wouldn’t it? Grapes and yeast, nothing from a living animal; but it gets complicated when the details are taken into account. So before putting anything in those wine bags, do some research on the company, some even put this information on their labels for the growing vegan and vegetarian population.

Wine is actually very cloudy with grape skin and yeast when it is being made, to clear this makers have to use something that will trap the particles and carry them to the bottom. A lot of wine makers use egg whites or casein, a milk protein, to achieve this. If that is the case the wine is no longer vegan but still vegetarian.  Of course even vegetarians will still need to label check and research which wine is okay to drink because not all vintners use those products.  Some wine makers choose to use edible gelatins made from animal bones, which would make the wine no longer vegetarian either.

via Rhino Wino