Wine is one of the rare food articles that isn’t required to show a label of all ingredients that have gone into the liquid. Wine makers have the luxury of using a number of additives and not having to declare it. The ones you will see in Australia are:
Sulphites (220) – preservatives used in varying quantities in 99.9% of commercial wines. Sulphites prevent/retard spoilage in organic materials and are essential in wine making.These are generally applied in traces that are easily below human tolerance levels, but can cause some allergic reactions in a very very small amount of people, predominantly asthmatics. Every, I repeat, every wine will have some traces of sulphites as they occur naturally during fermentation as part of the grapes natural defence system. Without sulphites your wine goes off.
“But I had a preservative free wine last week mitch!!!” I here you say. What they mean is no added preservatives, in the region of 10-15 parts per million, 10ppm is the limit where it has to be stated on the label. Normal table wines are around 100-150 ppm, and if you like eating dried apricots, they are around 3000ppm.
Fish products, or traces of eggs– fining agents to clear the wine of thicker particles that dull the wine and may cause bitterness. This refers to egg whites and an extract from fish (isinglass), proteins which attract suspended skin/stalk particles, causing them to sink to the bottom of the barrel. They are tasteless and used in very very small traces. In fact just 2 egg whites can be all that’s needed to clear 15,000 litres of wine.
None of these are to blame for your hangover, that’s the alcohol.
But Mitch, why is my hangover worse with cheap wines then? One common sensation associated with that “headache taste” in cheap wine is OVER sulphuring the wine from trying to avoid spoilage in lower quality grapes. Not just that, to cut costs and bring you a $3 wine some production methods and ingredients become very creative.
Some of the more fanciful ingredients may include: silica, lactic acid, gelatine, Ion exchange resins, brandy and …water. Yes your wine might contain up to 6 per cent added water. You can find a full list or allowable ingredients at the AWRI site
Would a wine label stating these things influence your buying habits?
- WINEDUCATION - 
As a vegetarian, my purchasing choices might actually be affected by seeing those things on the label. I don’t eat fish or products containing gelatine, but although I know that there can be some animal products involved in the wine-making process, it just seems too much of a hassle to find out if there are any veggie-friendly ones out there. Also, I don’t want to have to get fussy with my wines and maybe have to turn down the offer of a glass!! I would say that if an ingredient list was included on wine, and I found a large number of wines *didn’t* use these animal derivatives, I would try to stick to those where possible. On the other hand, if those ingredients seemed unavoidable, or products without them were difficult to find/expensive to buy, I would have to be less ethical about it and turn a blind eye to the animal products. To me, it’s not a nice thought that there are fish bits used to make my wine, but I’ve been drinking it for long enough that I almost feel it doesn’t matter anymore.
Hi Katie,
Yes, the world of consumer products isn’t made easy for vegetarians or people with gluten allergies. There is a bit of a movement, notably lead by world wine guru Jancis Robinson, calling for more transparency in the labelling of wines. As in food, it could be a good way to weed out the chemistry driven producers and influence buying decisions.
On the other hand, people would need to be educated on what exactly those ingredients are and not jump to conclusions. Most people just don’t have the time for this and, as in food, I’m sure the producers would find creative ways to label any possibly offensive ingredients anyway (think of all those “E”+number ingredients in Europe).
Case in hand are the fining agents in wine. We are talking about minute quantities here, for 10,000 litre tanks of wine you reportedly only need around 2 egg whites or 2 tablespoons of the fish derived agent!!! And as opposed to jelly babies with their base of animal gelatin, only the tiniest trace elements exist in the end product.
However, there are, thankfully for our vegetarian friends, some wines around labelling themselves as vegetarian friendly which are not overpriced.