a very vegan wine.

I’m vegan. Should I check to see if my wine suits my dietary needs? Yes.

Animal by-products have been used for a very long time in winemaking in the process of ‘fining’, for a number of (very valid) reasons.

Fining

Contrary to rumour, it’s not all about making wine look good. Sure, that is part of the reason to ‘fine’, as fining produces the clear looking, smooth and silky wines we’ve all come to expect. However, fining can also play a part in ensuring the stability of a wine — a two-fold goal of achieving both longevity and optimal flavour. Fining can serve the purpose of removing flavour elements like tannin-based bitterness that would otherwise render the wine difficult to enjoy.

For a very long time now, the fining agents most widely used in winemaking are egg whites, milk casein or gelatine. Different fining agents serve different purposes. For example, egg whites can help a red wine taste a lot less stringent. A desirable outcome…as long as you’re not vegan!

Here’s the good news for vegans: 

Wines can be made delicious without using animal by-products, and that’s how we do it at Huia Vineyards. Claire Allan decided to phase out the use of animal by-products in the Huia winemaking process in 2010. Today, all our wines are suitable for vegans.

The motivation for the change stemmed from an innocent conversation between Claire and her older sister, who is a vegetarian. Claire’s sister believed all wines were vegan, and she was surprised to hear that wasn’t the case. Claire — who is also a vegetarian, and a winemaker who rebels against the industry’s wide use of thoughtless additives — felt it was time to make a change. Ensuring Huia wines were vegan-friendly had the additional benefit of reducing the need to add preservatives, because natural tannins and antioxidants were still in place.

How do we do it?

In turns out the best fining agent is time. At Huia, we leave the wines as they are, and leave the acids and tannins to balance over time. When the balance is right, we put the wine on the shelf for you to buy.

The result are wines that aren’t as polished as traditional ‘fine wines’, but they retain more texture and interest. We love them, and it seems you do too.

Our favourite wine of the moment is our delicious Grüner Veltliner. Perfectly crisp and refreshing for spring and guaranteed suitable for our vegan friends. We can guarantee it because we grew the grapes and we made the wine so we know exactly what went into the bottle.

Scored as 94/100 — Christine Pickards, Wine Enthusiast.

Claire and her daughter Sophie enjoying a long family lunch on the deck at Huia.