In organic supermarkets or shops it is no problem to buy vegan wines and champagne, but in the 'outside world' this becomes oftenly a problem. Sometimes Mrs Google can help.

For the mainstream food industry vegan food is paid attention, but it's still a niche. The choice of labeling vegan wines is oftenly still ignored by regular supermarkets. Even many winemakers just do not care - even if their wines are actually vegan - they don't label it, becauce they think nobody cares anyway, what is just wrong!

It's all bout the method of clearing the wine from unwanted stuff swimming around in the yet unfinished wine. Therefore winemakers know many methods to clear and filter their wine. The non-vegan fining agents are with egg white, casein, carmine, chitosan, gelatine or even fish bladders.

Remember: If a wine is labeled 'Unfiltered' it's always vegan. The Demeter label rules allow no animal substances in the Demeter wine, so it's vegan, too. If a wine is labeled 'Kosher' it's vegetarian, because they can use egg, but no other animal-based substances for winemaking. Natural wines or organic or biodynamic wines are the usual suspects to be vegan, but you should better ask the winemaker to be absolutely sure.

The EU is about to revise the European wine making laws at this time. It will be a definately stricter law in the future, and not only the allergenes will be mandatory to be labeled on each wine bottle. That means: in the near future wines from all new vintages will provide information on their labels, if there was any animal product used in the wine making process. So it is just a matter of time, when the vegan or vegetarian customer will be perfectly informed.

I was talking about wine making, because champagne is - of course - made from wine or mostly several wines. Yes, in almost every case, champagne was made from more than one single wine! And this has a good reason. A champagne house creates a signature taste for its champagne, that should be kept up as exactly as possible all over the years. This is a very difficult task, because wine is a product of nature and every vintage will be individual in some kind of way.

The cellar masters of the Champagne region have a sophisticated method of composing their perfect champagne every year: They use some kind of modular system. Creating the perfect assemblage (mixture) out of many base wines to keeping up the taste and the style of their champagne.

Commonly used are only 3 varietals: Chardonnay (white), Pinot Noir (red) and Pinot Meunier (red). According to the wine making laws of the Champagne region, there are 4 more varietals allowed, but today seldomly used: Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc. Each varietal is pressed twice - the first (best quality) pressing is called cuvée, the second pressing is called taille (tail).  From each varietal and its pressings the base wines for one vintage are made. So you have 6 base wines per vintage. If the winemaker has harvested outstanding quality one year, he can issue his very own vintage champagne that is composed from these 6 base wines only.

There can a thrid pressing (deuxième taille) of the grapes, but this result nowadays mustn't be used for champagne anymore. It is used for brandy production - the Marc de Champagne.

Most of the champagners do not have a vintage on their label. So the assembleur (cellar master) has the option of taking base wines from, e.g. three vintages before, too, to create the signature taste of his champagne now out of 18 single base wines, which will be made champagne.

Remenber: If a winemaker can - of course - use less base wines or only the first pressing, if he wants to. There can be champagne from Chardonnay only (Blanc de blanc) or from the two or one red grapes only (Blanc de noir).

The much more known (second) meaning of cuvée is the individual mixture of the used grapes in a champagne, e.g. 60% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Meunier. Note this champagne is not necessarily a rosé (pink or orange coloured) champagne. It's white. If you treat red grapes like white grape (pressing and handling them immediately) they won't lose their colour in the grape skins. Only if you let red grape sit and ferment shortly, the colour will get into the wine.  

Grapes from special and long ago designated areas with excellent growing conditions are marked as Premier Cru (first growth) or even Grand Cru (grand growth) Champagnes. Champagne from these special areas achive a much higher price on the market.

This is the way, one single winemaker or champagne house, who uses their own harvested grapes, composes his indivdual champagne. You can recognize this on the number with two letters, every single bottle of champagne has printed on. The letters RM (récoltant-manipulant) means, this wine maker used just his own grapes. NM (négociant-manipulant) means the wine maker uses mailnly his own grapes and he purchased some grapes from other vineyards, too. CM (coopérative de manipulation) are grapes from many vineyards in the champagne region. Wine makers who work for such a corporation issue their own champagnes under RC (récoltant-coopérateur) on their label. Those champagnes from coorporations are not always the best quality, but often well affordable for everyone. If you find the letters MA (marque d'acheteur) on the label, it's a house brand the buyer ordered exclusively for his restaurant, department store, supermarket chain, etc.

As I mentioned before, many vegan champagnes are actually undercover in the shelves. There are a couple of well-known brands among them and many come at affordable prices...so do not hesitate!

The first four vegan champagnes I will introduce are very popular. Every well-stocked supermarket has them in store. These are four very well-known brand champagnes. But almost nobody knows they are vegan.

1. Moet & Chandon

2. Veuve Clicquot

3. Piper Heidsieck

4. Taittinger

When it comes to organic and biodynamic wine making, these Champagnes are oftenly found in German organic supermarkets. Some of them have won high acclaimed awards and highest scores in tastings.

5. Fleury

6. Nicolas Feuillatte

7. Duval-Leroy

Some champagnes are exclusively sold. The wine makers are proud, that you cannot get their champagnes in supermarkets. This is literally champagne you have to search for.

8. Ayala

9. Mailly

Last but not least, I will tell you my current favourite of vegan champagne:

10. Palmer & Co.

"I could not live without champagne. In victory I deserve it. In defeat I need it."

Winston Churchill, 1946

To Be Continued

If you enjoyed my article on vegan champagne, please like & share everywhere. Thanks & cheers!

This blog article contains unpaid advertising.