What do eggs or milk have to do with wine? Surprisingly, a lot. Fining and filtering are often the last steps taken to prepare a wine for bottling. These steps can also be taken very early in the winemaking process to speed up clarification. 

The fining process is used to “fine” or clarify (pretty-up) the wine. To accomplish this, proteins such as egg whites, milk, fish bladders, or other animal products are mixed with the wine to bind to the sediment molecules and drop them to the bottom of the vessel to be removed from the wine. Filtering is when the finished wine is run through a paper or canister filter or some other type of membrane to remove any sediment. Interestingly the winery is not required to disclose the additives used in the winemaking process even though many are allergic to them or believe they are drinking a vegan product. At LDV Winery we do not use fining agents and in most cases we do not filter. We believe in leaving our wines as natural as possible. Our wines are vegan, gluten-free, and sustainable.