Waste not! - DIY Sherry ?

[pelican]

Being an avid re-use/re-cycle and just general packrat type... as well as a lousy housekeeper

.... sometimes little miracles can come from abject neglectfullness!


Some while ago, probably a year or year and a half even, we received a bottle of homemade wine. (setting the stage here). Being that it was newly bottled when we got it, and being that I at least am not only neglectful of household duties but also rather impatient and excitable by such lovely gifts, well, we opened that very young wine with delicious anticipation.


It was not quite, uh, well, up to the expectations... I'm sure if we had left that bottle alone till now it would be divine, but it was somewhat less than that at the time. We drank about 1/2 the bottle and then said no, don't like it so much.


Rather than discard it, I thought "hm, well, leave wine sit around for a while and it turns into vinegar, so... waste not, want not... I'll put this over here and eventually have red wine vinegar" and then I *put it over here* on the shelf in the kitchen with all the bottles of soy sauce, peppercorns, jars of catnip and so forth, and dropped it off my radar.






~ Fast Forward to now ~


Noticing it again this week, I thought hm, let's see if it's vinegar or what now? I wonder what wine tastes like if it sits in a bottle with a bunch of air for a really long time....how bad DOES it get????


Well, -- It wasn't SO BAD at all! -- It had the remarkable taste of sherry, at least to me. To verify that I wasn't just totally looney, I got out the real Sherry (which has been sitting in the magic pantry for at least 10 years I'd say, so it may not be the best control subject) and yes, indeed, what I had in the ersatz vinegar experiment was really truly a lot like Sherry, without the extra fortification.


So frugal sort that I am, I dug around for the 10 year old Vodka, topped the wine up with that, still needed some more hard stuff but there wasn't enough vodka, so after a judicious taste test in a glass decided the good rum might do, and viola! A free bottle of Sherry now sits proudly on the liquor shelf.


moral of the story - I don't know that there is one!

 

[Wade E]

That is actually how sherry is made, by oxidizing wine. For vinegar you would have to add an acetebacteria(spelling?) The same bacteria that comes from fruit flies. Cool idea as i have a few bottles of wine from a cheaper kit that Im not so fond of, maybe Ill give it a try. What kind of wine was it?

Edited by: wade

 

[pelican]

You know, before I learned about winemaking, I had no idea that the fruit fly or any bacteria had anything to do with vinegar. I thought vinegar was just the natural byproduct of wine sitting out too long, going sour like milk does. I also was very uninformed about sherry, only knowing that I don't like Cream Sherry but the dry sherry was something else. This is such an educational hobby!!


The wine in question was labelled Prison Wine"from ingredients commonly found in your local prison"and it was not the Banana/Pineapple/Apple batch that NW said was a candidate for the label of Prison Wine in a much earlier prior thread -- I have a bottle of that too, sitting unopened and untouched now for 2 years, it may have improved over the description of "lamp oil" since then -- I'll impatiently try anything except the bottles that come marked as "not for drinking" LOL!
I don't know exactly what this particular wine was made from, but now it has a raisiny taste, and maybe was welches? maybe raisins altogether? It wasn't completely bad originally, but I think I may have an inkling what folks mean by bottle shock too now...that's probably what the deficit was at the time.


If you want to try duplicating the process, there was half a bottle of wine, tightly recorked, and set aside on a narrow shelf right behind the stove, just below a window sill, and totally ignored there for a least 18 months. I've got a variety of vinegars alreadyand usually have an open bottle of wine for cooking with, so it just sat there keeping the other things on that shelf company.

 

[NorthernWinos]

The 'Prison Wine' in question was indeed made from Welch's Concord frozen grape concentrate and WinExpert Red Grape Concentrate...it wasn't too bad if left to age awhile. If we ever make it again I would add oak and vanilla beans to it.


I think you got it when it was 'fresh'....a little age does help that one too.

 

[PeterZ]

Just like yeast is needed to convert sugar into alcohol, bacteria are needed to convert alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar). The species in question is Acetobacter sp. Just like there are many strains of yeast that give differing results - especially in beerbrewing - there are many strains of Acetobacter for making vinegar.

 

[Joanie]

I hear folks say that prison life gets cushier every day but I didn't realize they serve wine now.

Who knew?

 

[bovinewines]

I sat through a class with Dr. Roy Mitchell (for those of you in North Texas) who has the oldest (and maybe only) Sherry operation in Texas. He had said the same thing...in fact, he knew a professor at Fresno State who had a "sherry operation" in a closet!


So Inow have a 1 gallon jug that I dump all of my "white" wine in...stuff I don't finish or I let sit around to long. I take the top off, swirl it around to introduce air, then ignore it for another couple of weeks.


My goal is to eventually get a small barrel (say 5 gallons) that this wine will move to in order to help with micro-oxidation and make my own Sherry...


Keep us posted!