What are finings? How do I know if it's a vegan wine?

Tesco.com
Adding substances (fining agents) to a tank or barrel of wine in order to remove certain other, unwanted substances. The unwanted substances may be proteins. Proteins can be present in young wine in the form of invisibly minute particles. There's a danger that as they age they will clump together and become visible as a murky haze suspended in the wine. They have to be removed if the wine is to be guaranteed to stay bright and clear. The other substance sometimes reduced by fining agents is tannin. If a red wine tastes over-tough, a fining agent can soften it by removing some of the astringent tannin. Proteins and tannins go around in the wine as an item. Fining agents work rather like magnets, attracting the protein-tannin complexes to themselves, and dragging them down to the bottom of the barrel or vat. The clear wine can then be run off the deposit. Fining agents include some products of animal origin: gelatine from bones, isinglass extracted from fish swim bladders, casein from milk, albumin from eggs. For vegetarians and vegans, there are alternatives, including a type of clay called bentonite. Indeed, some wines are not fined at all and therefore suitable vegan wine.

Yaldara.com
The practice of clarifying a wine by adding a fining agent through the top of the barrel. A substance that is heavier than the wine itself, such as egg whites, forms on top of the wine then makes its way down through the liquid, trapping any lees like a net and dragging them to the bottom of the barrel or vat.

Beekmanwine.com
Fining agents remove elements that could affect the appearance or texture of the wine. For example, winemakers seeking to soften the texture of a highly tannic red wine might add egg whites or gelatin. Fining agents are added to a tank or barrel of wine. The substance grabs onto whatever solid matter it has an affinity for, and over a number of days carries it to the bottom. The wine is then drained off leaving the residue and the fining agent behind. Different fining agents are used for different purposes. Isinglass, an extremely pure gelatin produced from the bladders of sturgeon, is used mostly in white and sparkling wines to improve visual clarity and purify aroma. Bentonite, a volcanic clay, removes proteins for better clarity as well as stability during long-term storage. Egg whites are used almost routinely in red Bordeaux and are also used to remove bitterness from Sherry in Jerez, Spain. Once it was common throughout that district to see Sherry houses separating eggs to use the whipped whites for fining the wine. What became of the yolks? Restaurants all over the district would routinely offer dishes with béarnaise and hollandaise sauces! One fining agent popular with red-wine makers is a substance similar to ground-up nylon called polyvinyl polypyrrolidone, PVPP for short. A patented product of GAF Corp., PVPP is used to remove the pink color from some white wines. Because it can remove very small molecules, it also helps reduce bitterness. Small tannins are bitter; larger tannins are less so. Removing the smaller ones is helpful to keeping a red wine from being bitter. A new technology accomplishes the same task in a different way. Vinovation, a Sonoma County technical consulting firm, uses a patented French process called micro-oxygenation that helps small tannin molecules clump together. [Fewer, larger arrays of tannin have much less contact with the mouth than dispersed molecules because they have less surface area. The resulting wine is perceived as less tannic.]

The act of clarifying or removing undesirable components from wine. This is usually done by adding a pure material which has the property of reacting with and removing the undesired component. Typical fining agents are gelatin, egg white, bentonite (clay) and activated carbon. At one time, blood was used, but it is no longer approved. This is why some of your favourites might not be suitable vegan wine.

Students.depaul.edu.terms
Fining A technique for removing suspended particulates that can make wine hazy or add undesirable aromas. A fining agent such as bentonite (powdered clay) or egg whites is added to the top of a tank or barrel full of wine. As the fining agent travels down through the wine, it combines with the suspended particulates. Once the sediment has settled at the bottom of the container, it is easy to rack off the wine.

Vassefelix.com
A clarification process involving the addition of a fining agent such as betonite onto the surface of a wine. As the bentonite sinks to the bottom of the tank it carries with it any solid particles.

The act of clarifying or removing undesirable components from wine. This is usually done by adding a pure material which has the property of reacting with and removing the undesired component.