Wine that contains milk / dairy – a list of producers

It seems that some wine producers are slowly updating their labels to show the inclusion of milk, egg and other allergens as fining agents. However it’s not easy to get a handle on which wine to drink, especially when you’re out or in a pub. Do you ask to see the label and read to see what allergens it contains? Are you brave enough? Not so bad in pubs but in restaurants they have no idea why you want to read the label… and at friends houses they just think we’re mad.

I may have to just take my own bottle, hide it in my normally huge handbag (screw top is a must then) and drink from the bottle?

Or do you risk the russian roulette of wine and suffer the next day? I seem to now flush up red and hot immediately if wine contains dairy.

Here is my list of wine brands that I KNOW contain milk:

• Echo Falls – this one has always caused me a problem so I’m delighted to see that they now list milk as an allergen on their labels.
• Banrock Station – They told me: “Fining agents, such as Isinglass, egg, skim milk powder and Gelatine are used in the winemaking process for most red and white wines, and can vary from vintage to vintage. Fining agents have been used for many years in the winemaking process primarily for clarification and tannin reduction.”
• Hardys
• Kumala – Contains: Eggs, Milk, Sulphur Dioxide/Sulphites

Wine suspected of containing milk

This is a list of wine I’ve had a reaction to but that does not carry a warning that it contains milk.

• The Straw Hat (Prestige Collection) – Bought in Aldi. Awaiting confirmation

To the supermarket wine buyers – are you listening?

The Co-op now list ALL the ingredients in their wine, the good (grapes) the bad (chemicals and additives) and the ugly (milk, egg etc.) so thank you to The Co-operative Group.

If they can do it, why can’t you all do it?

Visit The Vegan Wine guide here for a fairly conclusive list

I’ve been drinking wine from the Villa Noria range which are organic and guaranteed to contain NO egg, milk, casein or other fining agents.

The CEO and Senior Wine Maker also said,

“To reduce the level of sulphites in the wines; for example the Total SO2 for the red is very low (70 mg/liter) compared to the average organic wines (the maximum limit for an organic wine is 150 mg/l)”

One of my contacts on Google+ who used to own a wine shop told me, “Most wine makers who make limited production wines have higher standards than larger wine factories and also have more stringent controls. Organics are probably your best source, as well as Italian and French who farm organically by tradition.”

I can feel a booze cruise to France coming on to try out some embouteillé dans la casa wines.

If you know of any other safe wines or companies selling freefrom wine please let me know. I hope to build on this list as I find more so we can all avoid those that might make us sick and learn which are safe.

The next list, slightly more complex, will be a list of wine I KNOW is FreeFrom dairy, egg, sulphites etc.

Worryingly, just because it’s not on the label doesn’t mean it’s freefrom anything, it just means the producer hasn’t declared it, hasn’t yet updated their labels, or maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t contain any allergens – but how do we know?