Natural, organic or vegan wine?  Understand the differences

Natural, organic or vegan wine? Understand the differences


Sommelière explains in detail how each type is produced so you can choose the best option

Sustainability has been the big buzzword of recent years. Consumers are increasingly looking for products that are not only healthy and high quality, but also do not harm the environment. And, when it comes to types of wine, it couldn’t be different.

Combining taste with care and attention to the environment has become an excellent element of competitive differentiation in this market. Finally, the lower environmental impact is also a consequence of the development of technology in wine production, as well as lightness, benefits and flavour. Understand more through knowing the sommelière at wine, Thamirys Schneider:




Natural

According to the expert, a natural wine This is when there is no intervention in the production or vineyards, which brings it closer to the most primitive processing methods. “The production vision is to make the wine as natural as possible. That is, without the use of chemical inputs, preservatives, selected microorganisms, fining agents, filtering or more advanced technologies. Many producers are even against the use of barrels, because it is illustrative”clarifies.

The topic is still debated, as the term is still very complex in the world of wine. “There are no consolidated rules on what can or cannot be done, including giving space for it to be considered natural without necessarily being so. Another complex factor concerns the difficulty of monitoring, since there are no consolidated rules, it is difficult to monitor the veracity of the production natural”He states.

For the consumer, he is still very far from knowing what is in the wine he drinks.

Biological

All natural wine is organic, but not all organic wines fits the term natural. There are those who think that organic and natural wine are synonymous, but this is not the case. «In short, for a wine to be considered organic, there cannot be any synthetic chemical input in the cultivation of the vineyard. In short, it is a production without pesticides, pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers and fungicides. There are very consolidated methods and production rules can be used that generate rigorous control to defend a vineyard free of synthetic chemical substances. Natural inputs can be used in the vineyards and winemaking, technologies can be used in the vineyards, such as mechanical harvesting and different ripening techniques, but agrochemicals cannot be used in the vineyards.”points out.

Vegan

Not all natural or organic wines are vegan. “Grapes, the raw material of wine, are a fruit. However, during the winemaking phases or after fermentation – to remove some unwanted suspended particles – the presence of animal components may be present, such as albumin (egg white ), milk casein and gelatin In addition to these, isinglass (“isinglass”) – included in the wine clarification stage. This means that the wine is not considered vegan, as it has had contact with some component of animal origin.”explains.

Schneider states that some producers choose not to filter, others carry out clarification by decanting, and there are also those who use elements of vegetal and mineral origin: “An example is proteins extracted from peas, grape seeds or bentonite (mineral extracted from clay) to carry out this process. In these cases the wines are considered vegan. It is worth noting that there are also rules to follow when producing a vegan wine, as well as rigorous supervision by regulatory and supervisory bodies”.

It is worth remembering that a wine can be vegan and non-organic if agrochemicals are used in the vineyards. “In other words, although organic wine and vegan wine are not synonymous vegan wines it can also be biological and vice versa”clarifies.

Source: Terra

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