Could I make vinegar from spoiled wine?

Question

I have about 20 litres of wine, that was not stored properly (warm place, some access of air), and is now sour.

Can I make from spoiled wine vinegar of the commercial quality? If so, do I need a "mother culture" or just waiting longer will still produce the same quality?

Similar question, but too detailed for me. I am asking about the feasibility of the idea.

Haha yeah that "vinegar" in my story was an accident and probably would not have been usable for anything. — FrustratedWithFormsDesigner, Jul 11 '12 at 13:37
Some quick googling has yielded: http://italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa05100a.htm this has a bit more detail: http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/2006/winter/vinegarpage.htm — FrustratedWithFormsDesigner, Jul 11 '12 at 14:34
You might want to try this question over at http://cooking.stackexchange.com/ — paul, Jul 26 '12 at 20:05
Is there anything we can add to the answer here to get your question resolved? — bmike, Aug 27 '12 at 19:21
Woops, thanks, bmike. I left the bottle on a warm place. Maybe soon I should be checking what has come out of it :) — Vorac, Aug 28 '12 at 07:09

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 09 '18 at 17:01

Yes, you can make it with a vinegar mother or leaving it alone, with cheesecloth to keep out the flies. If you want a mother, you can get them a lot of places, even Amazon. Wine Spectator (or all places) has a great blurb on it:

How do you make homemade red wine vinegar? Wine Spectator

If you think it hasn't been hit by bugs carrying acetobacter or another nasty bacteria, you could just put a cheesecloth or handkerchief over the mouth of the container and let it be to see if you get some. My own suggestion is to split the batch up and try a bunch of ways!

Could I make vinegar from spoiled wine?

1 Answers1