elderflower wine: a question

[BernardSmith]

I routinely make elderflower wine and this is one of my family's favorite wines but I frequently read recipes that suggest those making this wine add a couple or more tablespoons of vinegar and for the life of me I cannot get my head around the value of adding vinegar to the ingredients to make wine from elderflowers.

Traditional recipes call for the addition of lemon juice (or acid blend) to add a kick to the flavor and most recipes suggest the addition of tannin (or black tea). Many recipes call for the addition of raisins - I suspect to add greater mouthfeel and most likely to add nutrients for the yeast, but vinegar?

What could be the value of adding vinegar to the must? No one suggests that the vinegar should contain live bacterial cultures so it is not about souring the wine... Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I dont think the vingar recipies are for real wine, its more like a quick light drink kind of like a kambucha? I think the best way to make elderflower is to make a mead with it from light colored spring honey. WVMJ

 

[BernardSmith]

I dont think the vingar recipies are for real wine, its more like a quick light drink kind of like a kambucha? I think the best way to make elderflower is to make a mead with it from light colored spring honey. WVMJ

Two quick points, WVMJ -
1. Last spring I made a mead with elderflowers and it completely transformed the flavor cutting out what I think are the more peppery notes (I don't have a good way of describing the flavor of elderflower wine) that I think of as essential to the wine.
2. The use of vinegar in what I think of as "traditional" recipes for this wine seems incredibly commonplace. (see for example: http://www.homewinemaking.co.uk/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1247328341).
There are half a dozen or more videos on You Tube and articles published by the BBC and The Guardian (a solid British newspaper). Most folk who make elderflower wine highlight the use of wild yeast and highlight the pressure the CO2 will produce in bottles. They tend to bottle very quickly so that there are many volumes of CO2 packed in the bottle and the risk (and experience ) of bottle bombs is frequently noted. Bottom line: I don't think that the addition of vinegar signifies that these wine makers think of this as a kind of kombucha. In fact elderflower wine is often referred to as a "champagne" although, I did see one video where the fellow claimed that his elderflower champagne was "alcohol free" - despite the fact that he had used more than a kilo of sugar per gallon, there was about 2 inches of froth and bubbles in his wine glass and the wine was more than a year aged in a bottle...

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

or more like elderflower soda kindof?