Clarifiers are widely used in winemaking practice, both in musts and wines, with the aim of improving the clarity and sensory characteristics of treated products.

Each clarifier has specific properties and reacts with different wine constituents depending on its chemical characteristics such as molecular weight and charge. The result of this process is manifested through the formation of insoluble aggregates containing the compounds that the winemaker aims to remove from the wine. Proteins of animal origin have been the only tools available for decades. The general evolution of the food industry has been offering winemaking, now for some years, proteins of plant origin with singular characteristics.

Pea and potato proteins with different properties are available on the market. Proteins extracted from pea have a generally higher molecular size than those from potato, and both differ greatly from animal proteins in their typically low solubility.

Pea proteins allow a reduction in browning and polyphenols in some cases comparable to that of caseinate while potato proteins react preferentially with the more astringent tannins. Also in the case of plant proteins, the fine-tuning of their production process impressively determines the characteristics of the compounds, defining their specificity for oenological application. Plant proteins have also shown
characteristics useful for the colloidal stabilization of wines, a topic that offers many insights.