Ceramica Nicola Vinaigrier – Stoneware Vinegar Making Barrel

This stunning stoneware vinaigrier lets you make your own vinegar at home in as little as 4 weeks. Just add wine or cider, and to speed things up, a little vinegar with the ‘mother’. In time, you’ll have a source of homemade vinegar on tap.

The hand-glazed traditional ‘amphora’ style vinaigrier echoes those that have been used all around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. The curved section in the wooden stand makes it easy to fit a bottle, jar or cup under the tap.

To make your vinegar, first clean the vinaigrier with hot soapy water and dry thoroughly. Make sure the tap is closed and add wine, cider or even champagne. If it’s alcoholic and unfortified (hasn’t had distilled spirit added), you can use it to make vinegar. It’s best to just half fill the vinaigrier – or even less – as the alcohol will need air to ferment into vinegar. 

Pop the lid on and leave the vinaigrier in a warm place to ferment – around 25°C is ideal. Check the progress of your vinegar every few days, partly to keep exposing the vinegar to air. You should notice a thin, cloudy film start to form on the surface of the liquid. This is the ‘mother’ of vinegar, enzymes which break down the alcohol into vinegar. The smell will tell you when it’s ready to bottle, but it’s worth dispensing a little from the tap to have a taste, too! The full process can take anything from two weeks up to 6 months depending on air flow and how warm you can keep the vinaigrier – fermentation will slow at 20°C and stop under 15°C.

To speed up the vinegar-making process and make it more consistent, add ‘mother’ of vinegar right at the start. You can find this in most unpasteurised vinegar, like Bragg’s or this cider vinegar with mother. Invert the bottle a few times to make sure the ‘mother’ is well distributed. Then add about 200ml to the vinaigrier with a bottle of wine, or even a whole bottle if you’re making your own cider vinegar. With the ‘mother’, fermentation can take as little as 4 weeks. You should use around a quarter of the vinegar : wine ratio. 

When the vinegar is ready it is best to bottle it, to reduce air contact. Although the air helped convert alcohol to acetic acid (vinegar), it is not good for the vinegar. Sandor Katz in his book The Art of Fermentation mentions someone who recommends aging the vinegar in bottles even for six months, perhaps even with wood chips, to develop flavours – and that’s certainly something researching more thoroughly if you become passionate about vinegar making.

When you’ve bottled your vinegar, save some of the ‘mother’ by sealing it in a bottle or jar with vinegar. By saving a little each time you’ll have an endless supply of vinegar ‘starter’, and an endless supply of homemade vinegar.

The vinaigrier measures 27.5cm height x 22cm diameter (at its widest point), with a capacity of 4 litres.

Please note: The reactive glaze used on the vinaigrier can vary, and final shades may be slightly lighter or darker than the photos.