Wednesday, February 23, 2011

White Wine Vinegar

I'm not a big drinker. If there is an event happening, I may have a glass of something, but otherwise, I'm just not a big drinker.  As a result, there was a rather large bottle of white wine sitting on my counter for almost a year.  It had been opened at some point to use a small amount for a recipe, but it still just sat there.

Then I had an idea.  Why not make vinegar?  Vinegar can be expensive.  Good vinegar can be really expensive.  It seems a bit silly to spend that much money for something spoiled.  That is what I do though.  Until now.  I had an old bottle of real apple cider vinegar with the mother.  You can actually see that repurposed bottle in the background.  The mother, with a small amount of acv was poured into the bottle of wine.  Then I ignored it.  It sat on the counter for a few weeks.  Every so often I would taste it.  It still tasted like wine, so it sat some more.

Then the other day, it tasted like vinegar.  It tasted like really good vinegar!  I now had close to 2 quarts of live white wine vinegar.  Time invested in this, was under 5 minutes total.  Most of that was taking the pictures and writing the blog post.  It will probably go into a wonderful white wine vinaigrette for dinner tonight.  The rest can sit and wait to be used.  Simply wonderful!

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9 comments:

  1. meemsnycFebruary 23, 2011 at 12:35 PM

    What an awesome idea!! I bet it's going to be amazing on a salad.

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  2. Karen AnneFebruary 23, 2011 at 11:49 PM

    You lost me :-) The cider vinegar was not the "mother"? You had to get that some place?

    Is a bottle of wine two quarts?

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  3. LeighFebruary 24, 2011 at 6:45 AM

    What a great experiment! I have one recipe I use wine vinegar for, (spice pickled beets) but when I priced wine vinegar for it, I nearly fell over at the price. This may really be the way to go

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  4. The MomFebruary 24, 2011 at 6:56 AM

    Meems, it was awesome!

    Karen Anne, real cider vinegar has this stuff floating in it called a mother. That is what I used to make the vinegar. The bottle of wine I had was like a double bottle and it had 2 qts in it.

    Leigh, you should try it. It's so much cheaper.

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  5. tunewiczFebruary 24, 2011 at 1:02 PM

    Funny. My dad gave me some of the maple syrup we made last year. It had been in his fridge. But, I'm guessing it had too much water content and perhaps spent some time outside of the fridge. Because when I opened it the other day, the top popped and when I put it in the pitcher, it fizzed. We've got ourselves some maple wine or something like that. And without even trying. :)

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  6. Ocean Breezes and Country SneezesFebruary 25, 2011 at 10:40 AM

    What a great idea! I'll bet it's delicious! Did you also know vinegar's great for cleaning stainless steel!

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  7. kitsapFGFebruary 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM

    Great idea - particularly since the wine was just sitting idle anyways!

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  8. The MomFebruary 27, 2011 at 10:18 AM

    Lori, I'm going to have to check my syrup now!

    Ocean breezes, I use vinegar to clean most things in my house. I don't know that I'll use my wine vinegar though.

    Laura, I hate to waste anything you know.

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  9. Sustainable EatsFebruary 28, 2011 at 12:24 AM

    Great idea Heather! did you leave the bottle open or closed? I tried to make vinegar once and after 5 months it was still putrid. I didn't have a mother, I used yeast. Maybe I need some mother!

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