Compare wine and balsamic vinegar

Pro­fes­sion­al chefs keep the secrets of prepar­ing their dish­es in the strictest con­fi­dence, but one thing is for sure: they always use orig­i­nal and nat­ur­al spices, as well as vine­gar. Among the vari­ety of all kinds of fla­vor­ings and sauces, bal­sam­ic and wine vine­gars are absolute favorites. Are there any dif­fer­ences between them and what are they? Our experts under­stood the culi­nary intri­ca­cies.

Balsamic miracle comes from Italy

Bal­sam­ic vine­gar was first cre­at­ed in Europe. It was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed as a rem­e­dy. It was so dif­fi­cult to man­u­fac­ture and finan­cial­ly expen­sive that it could be an excel­lent dowry for the bride. The prod­uct, which is a mix­ture of fruit, wine and grapes, could be infused for years, bring­ing it to per­fec­tion. A thick mass with a del­i­cate fruity aro­ma and many valu­able min­er­als was used for skin reju­ve­na­tion by noble peo­ple, as a first aid for burns, and even one of the first med­i­cines after the appear­ance of the plague.

Of course, a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent prod­uct is pre­sent­ed on mod­ern store shelves: an eco­nom­i­cal option that is aged in pro­duc­tion for no longer than 2 months. And its com­po­si­tion does not include grape must: only vine­gar with the addi­tion of starch and dyes. It is for this rea­son that the use of bal­sam­ic vine­gar from the store for med­ical or cos­met­ic pur­pos­es is no longer rel­e­vant.

By the way, Ital­ian bal­sam­ic vine­gar began to be called after the Ital­ians first guessed to use it in cook­ing. Since then, this prod­uct has been con­sid­ered a con­stant com­pan­ion of pas­ta and almost any dish con­tain­ing toma­toes, veg­eta­bles, meat with toma­to sauce, etc.

Bal­sam­ic vine­gar is some­times called Mod­e­na after the name of the town where the same grape vari­ety used in the man­u­fac­ture of the mag­ic mix­ture grows. The real nat­ur­al ver­sion is still incred­i­bly com­plex in its recipe, which is strict­ly kept among only 300 Ital­ian fam­i­lies. Com­plete­ly nat­ur­al, “true” bal­sam­ic vine­gar is very expen­sive, which is not sur­pris­ing, because only 15 liters of the fin­ished prod­uct are obtained from 100 liters of raw mate­ri­als.

ON A NOTE. Grape vine­gar is made from the juice of white grapes. Despite this, the fin­ished prod­uct has a rich dark col­or. This is due to the pecu­liar­i­ty of the con­tain­ers in which it is “infused”: in bar­rels made of nat­ur­al wood.

French wine chic

It would be log­i­cal to assume that France, as the true home of the best wines in the world, has at least some­thing to do with wine vine­gar. And indeed it is. The prod­uct was orig­i­nal­ly pro­duced in the French expans­es. For this, red / white wine was used (and still is). Accord­ing­ly, there is white and red wine vine­gar.

The lat­ter is con­sid­ered the most expen­sive, because for its man­u­fac­ture expen­sive vari­eties of red wines are used (for exam­ple, Mer­lot, Bor­deaux), which are aged for a long time in wood­en bar­rels. The fin­ished prod­uct is indis­pens­able in the process of prepar­ing mari­nades for pork, var­i­ous types of fish, etc. It is also used as the basis for sauces such as romesco and pic­a­do.

The clos­est rel­a­tive of red wine vine­gar is white. In its man­u­fac­ture, wine is also used, only dry white, and the semi-fin­ished mass is aged in met­al con­tain­ers. For this rea­son, white wine vine­gar is con­sid­ered sim­pler and less expen­sive. The prod­uct has a mild, har­mo­nious taste. Ide­al for dress­ing veg­etable sal­ads, used in the prepa­ra­tion of seafood dish­es.

ON A NOTE. Because vine­gar is vir­tu­al­ly calo­rie-free, it makes a great alter­na­tive to fat­ty sauces. In addi­tion, it stim­u­lates the diges­tion process, increas­es appetite.

What is the difference?

Many peo­ple con­fuse bal­sam­ic vine­gar with wine vine­gar and vice ver­sa. It can be quite dif­fi­cult for a per­son not spoiled by fine dish­es (and some­times even an inex­pe­ri­enced cook) to taste one from the oth­er. Let’s try to sum­ma­rize by com­par­ing both prod­ucts on a num­ber of cri­te­ria.