Folks that I know like to make "wine" without using wine yeast. I guess that they depend on wild yeast. Some of their wine that I have tasted tastes like sweetened vinegar. They say that it is wine, I think that it is vinegar. I don't have a test that I can perform on the wine to prove an alcohol content.My nose is not sensitive enough to detect the vinegar odor. Is there an objective test to settle such a disagreement? Can alcohol and vinegar both exist in the same liquid? Thanks, James
The only test I have ever used is taste. That is enough for me. If they like it why spoil it for them with a test. If you really want to prove your point just make your one and let them taste the difference.
Yes they can both exist in the wine but not forever. The bacteria that makes vinigar will slowly consume the alcohol, converting it to vinigar. This may take 6 months to seveal years but during that time both will exist.
James They can coexist, it's normal actually. Well made wine is mostly alcohol with very little acetic acid. It sounds like the wine you tasted was the reverse. (Some vinegars are made this way, that stuff may be good on a salad.) I have tasted a lot of horribly made homemade wine that was a combination of acetic acid and something else, it's kind of hard to get past the vinegar.
Here is what may have happened: Some winemakers use old barrels and just tap the barrel, taking some day by day. It may have been wine when they started, but sooner or later it's not exactly what they started with, and after a while it's vinegar (best case, worst case is not even worth discussing). They had it every day and the changes were small, so they don't notice the stuff is changing. Now you come along and taste and smell it and it's not exactly what you think wine should taste like.
The testing is pretty compicated to be honest. You need to distill, it's a lot of work to prove something you already know. Your nose and tongue are pretty good indicators for acetic acid, if you think it's vinegar, it probably is. To be honest, if they like the wine it's doubtful any test you did would convince them there is an issue, it's good enough for them.
I doubt this has anything to do with wild yeast, I have fermented grapes in the past without adding any commercial yeast and they fermented to completion. It's pretty common in France too, but they make the same wine year after year in the same way and same place in those wineries. I'm not saying you should not use comercial yeast either, I alway did after reading one book.
To get back to your original premise, vinegar has to have oxygen to grow. It's actually the byproduct of acetobacter, so you need to do two things to make it. Infect the wine with acetobacter in sufficient amounts for it to take off, and supply oxygen.
If the container they make it in smells like vinegar at all before adding must, that's enough to infect the wine; if it's not topped up properly, the air in the container suppled the oxygen. It does not take a lot of aecetobacter to infect wine, but it hates sulfite and needs air to grow, so those steps are probably the most important thing a winemaker can do to prevent it's growth.
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