Cocktails with Wine vinegar
Wine vinegar is a vinegar made from wine, in which the ethanol is oxidised to acetic acid by acetic acid bacteria.
Taste profile
Sharply acidic and sour from its acetic acid, carried by a vinous aroma; the red form is fuller and more robust, the white milder.
How it's used
Serving as a souring accent rather than a structural base, it is added in small measured amounts to supply sharp acidity, and swaps loosely for another comparable vinegar.
Substitutes for Wine vinegar
White wine vinegar delivers essentially the same acetic acidity and a closely related vinous aroma, though it is milder and near-colourless, losing the reddish tint and fuller aroma of the red form; any vinegar of comparable acetic strength can match the acidity.
Often confused with
Balsamic vinegar
Traditional balsamic vinegar is made from cooked, concentrated grape must aged in wood, giving a sweet, syrupy product, whereas wine vinegar is made from fermented finished wine and is sharp rather than sweet.
Description
Wine vinegar takes finished wine as its raw material through a two-stage process: sugars are first fermented to ethanol, then acetic acid bacteria of the genera Acetobacter and Gluconacetobacter/Komagataeibacter oxidise that ethanol to acetic acid in the presence of oxygen. The result is an aqueous solution of dilute acetic acid, typically around 4% to 18% by volume, produced in both red and white forms according to the starting wine.
