For The Love Of Port

Has anyone ever tried this? Has anyone ever had an opened bottle of port turn to vinegar?

Does anyone know whether the bacterial process that converts ethanol to acetic acid can work at high ethanol concentrations? It seems to work for Sherry (Wikipedia), but has anyone tried it with port?

Acetobacter gives out somewhere around 15%, so it probably won't work with Port. Here's one source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=oO5L20 ... CDcQ6AEwCQ
I've got a book at home that should have some info as well that I'll check out if I remember too.

Eric Menchen wrote:Acetobacter gives out somewhere around 15%, so it probably won't work with Port. Here's one source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=oO5L20 ... CDcQ6AEwCQ
I've got a book at home that should have some info as well that I'll check out if I remember too.

Well, that was an expensive link; I'm just back from an hour browsing Amazon.com....

Don't know the chemistry behind it, but even ancient over the hill or leaking bottles have never seemed vinegar-like to me. Nonetheless, I have bought Port wine vinegar to use in my cooking but never tried to actually create it myself.

It probably wouldn't work - at least not with Port that has already been bottled. One of the reasons that sulfites are added to wine (and Port) is to prevent it from turning into vinegar, which would occur naturally very quickly if the sulfites weren't present.

Which leads me to an aside... all wines contain sulfites. My Mom swears that wines in Europe are better (and don't give her headaches) because they don't contain sulfites, and she doesn't believe me when I explain that the only difference is the label. US law requires that wine be labeled as containing sulfites... European law does not. But the wine is exactly the same (read: it contains sulfites).

Glenn E. wrote: Which leads me to an aside... all wines contain sulfites. My Mom swears that wines in Europe are better (and don't give her headaches) because they don't contain sulfites, and she doesn't believe me when I explain that the only difference is the label. US law requires that wine be labeled as containing sulfites... European law does not. But the wine is exactly the same (read: it contains sulfites).

It is true that some producer in Europe do not put or add sulfites in their wines. Sulfites are found naturally on the vines too, so even if you don't add any, you'll find some in the wines. I'm not sure if its the same for the USA than Quebec, but here if a bottle wants to be sold on the shelve, it is requiered a minimum of X amount of sulfites in the bottle. For this reason some producer will bottle different batch for Quebec and keep other higher quality batch with less sulfites to be sold in Europe. When tasted from the barrels to compare, it is a totally different wine.

Regarding Port vinegar, I know one producer in the Douro that is making some. I don't know how exactly he's making it though, he's waiting on the IVDP approval before releasing any.

I tasted turpentine from a "1908 Dow". Not sure if it was even port, but something awful and unique was going on in that bottle. Is was "I'll pay you X dollars if you can drink that glass down" bad.

O.k., I consulted one of my brewing texts which referenced this
http://www2.parc.com/emdl/members/apte/ ... dale.shtml
It indicates Acetobacter can tolerate up to 18% alcohol. Port will still have too much, and then there is the issue of sulfites. So I'll say you can't make vinegar from commercially available Port. That doesn't mean a Port producer couldn't make it out of the source material if the fortification was kept down.

Suprised that Taylor does not make vinegar since they produce Olive Oil and have the grapes on hand.