Beef Blood

[girlperson1]

While surfing the Strat's Place Living Wine Dictionary, I stumbled upon the following definition:

FINING
done to improve the clarity of a wine .. materials such as eggwhites (used for red wines), isinglass*( used for white wines), bentonite* are often used .. but believe it or not .. gelatin and even refined beef blood is used at times.

Basically these agents grab a hold of the loose particles that might cloud a wine and pull them to the bottom of the barrel.

Beef Blood? OK...maybe I'm thinking a bit too much but if there a remote possibility of developing mad cow disease from drinking wine that's undergone "fining" using refined beef blood.