Bottling Returns Part 1

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It’s impossible to transfer every last drop of wine from the tank into the bottle so inevitably there is a little bit of wine leftover on the day of bottling. It’s heartbreaking, really, to let it flow down the drain so I try to use every part of the buffalo.

From my red bottling returns, I make vinegar. I still buy balsamic and sherry vinegar and apple cider vinegar at the store but it kills me to pay for red wine vinegar when it is so easy* to make at home.

Homemade Red Wine vinegar

Things you will need

  • a food grade container that you can rubber band a paper towel to the top of. I like to use empty 1 gallon plastic water jugs. We want to maximize the surface area of the wine that is exposed to the air so I am only filling these containers like 2/3 full.

  • a natural brand of unfiltered raw apple cider vinegar with lees you can see

  • leftover dry red wine

  • cute bottles

First I let the red wine sit exposed to the air at room temperature (protected from fruit flies with the paper towel and rubber band) for a couple days to let the sulfur dioxide dissipate. I don’t want the sulfites that we use as a preservative in winemaking to kill off the acetobacter culture in the apple cider vinegar. To prepare the inoculum, I pour off the clear apple cider vinegar into some other temporary container (I use a big pitcher style 4 cup liquid measuring cup). The solid precipitate left behind as the brown dregs in the bottle is what I add to my red wine - this is the acetobacter inoculation. Then I pour the apple cider vinegar from the measuring cup back into its bottle for future salad dressings. I tend to not disturb the red wine vinegar ferment - the recipes below suggest stirring and mixing but I think that is overkill and can lead to spills and a big mess.

In my old apartment I stored these vinegar ferments on top of my refrigerator, out of the way, easy to forget about until I had visitors who were curious as to what the hell was on the top of my fridge. I never noticed a “VA” smell in that Seattle apartment, but the truth is it was a 100 year old building on Capitol Hill so there were a lot of other smells in the background, whether the windows were open or closed. My years spent living inside of a tiny vinegar factory combined with my love of Italian red wines (no disrespect) could be why I am not super-sensitive to volatile acidity as a flaw in our wine tastings …

Vinegar making is a slow process, in the past I have tried to speed it up with an aquarium pump bubbling air into it when I was in a big hurry to make vinegar (wine people problems, am I right?) but the best batches came out when I just ignored the stuff. I’m talkin 6+ months, so it’s a commitment in terms of your kitchen decor. Maybe if I had a garage where I could stash it I would age it even longer. Way too much of a microbiological liability to store it anywhere near the winery.

Most store-bought vinegar is around 5-6% acetic acid. In the presence of oxygen, the acetobacter bacteria convert the alcohol (14% ethanol in my wine) to acetic acid and water.

Even if the wine is very clear at the beginning, the vinegar after 6 months will likely need to be racked off of solids before bottling. I have gone so far as to use a 5 gallon bucket with a tiny “racking valve” spigot from the homebrew shop - this is when I was really in production mode - but most of the time I can just pour off and fill 375mL bottles with a funnel. I can tell you it is much less stressful than wine bottling, we don’t care about oxygen pick up here. Then I use a T-top to close and finish with old labels to gift to my friends.

* One gallon of Roland red wine vinegar is $7

* One gallon of Roland red wine vinegar is $7

Erica Orr