Plum Vinegar

Zwetschken Essig by Gölles. Fine-herb Hauszwetschke for red cabbage, beetroot and game.

Zwetschken Essig is the fruit vinegar of the Gölles manufactory made from old Hauszwetschken, grown in orchards around Riegersburg, 250 ml. No plum jam, no balsamic vinegar, no sweet spiced vinegar for desserts.

Zwetschken Essig is made in the Styrian Vulkanland: Gölles presses Hauszwetschken and ferments their juice into vinegar in two stages. In Germany, it is called Zwetschge, in the north people often simply say Pflaume. So anyone looking for plum vinegar will find its Austrian counterpart here. Hold the bottle to your nose: besides Zwetschke, it surprisingly smells of beetroot, pumpkin and kohlrabi. The acidity is lively and fine-herb.

Intense fruit, lively acidity

The Zwetschkenessig by Gölles has an intense fruit flavor and a lively acidity of five percent. The house traces both back to the Hauszwetschke. It is smaller and more tart than a table plum and brings more tannin, which gives the vinegar structure.

In the mouth, it appears darker and deeper than a vinegar made from apples or wine. Its fruit carries without being sweet. Especially with rich dishes, it provides a bright counterpoint instead of weighing them down further.

For delicate leaf salads with herbs or for fish, it is not the right tool. Its dark fruit quickly covers delicate aromas, a lighter fruit vinegar is better suited there.

Red cabbage, game sauce, duck and beetroot

Gölles recommends the vinegar for red cabbage, beetroot, bitter salads, dark sauces, Coq au Vin, duck, goose and game. Its tannin stands up to even fatty dishes. The house lists sunflower oil and white grapeseed oil as oil partners.

For red cabbage for four people, add 2 tbsp Zwetschkenessig after braising, it brightens the color and freshens up the taste. A game sauce from venison or deer gets one to two teaspoons at the very end, preferably together with some cranberry. With duck or goose, dissolve the roasting residue in the pan with three tablespoons of vinegar before adding the stock.

Beetroot is called Rote Bete in Germany. For a salad made from it, mix 500 g cooked beets with 2 tbsp vinegar, 3 tbsp sunflower oil, caraway and some horseradish. It also suits a lentil salad with bacon well. Anyone who pickles Zwetschken in autumn or cooks a chutney of Zwetschken, onions and ginger uses this vinegar as an acid base, so the fruit stays among its own.

Good to know: Anyone who prefers to round off dark sauces with a classic wine vinegar reaches for the oak-barrel red wine vinegar. The Zwetschkenessig brings more fruit, the red wine vinegar more wood and tannin.

Why Gölles refuses to listen to Pflaume

“Never call me a plum,” Gölles lets this vinegar say in its own description. For this, good old Hauszwetschken from the orchards around the farm are needed. The Hauszwetschke is elongated, has firm flesh and detaches well from the stone.

Fruit growing has a long tradition in the family. Alois Gölles senior made fruit growing a full-time occupation from 1958, his son began distilling in 1979 and with vinegar from the mid-eighties. The Hauszwetschke bears late in the year, it is only harvested when it is truly ripe. Picked early, its dark aroma would remain pale in the vinegar.

From the juice of the Zwetschken, a fruit wine is first created through natural fermentation, which the vinegar mother then converts into vinegar. At least one year of storage in stainless steel follows, without wood contact, because the fruit itself brings enough tannin. This keeps the fruitiness of the Zwetschke at the center.

A vinegar for the dark autumn and winter cuisine

The Zwetschkenessig brings Styrian fruit into dishes that otherwise quickly become heavy. Where red wine or blackcurrant jelly makes a sauce sweet, it provides acidity with fruit. A braised roast with plums and cinnamon or a wild boar goulash gains tension with it at the end.

For desserts, it is less suitable, because its acidity demands savory partners. As a gift for game connoisseurs, hunters or lovers of Viennese cuisine, the bottle is therefore a clever choice.

A dash of Zwetschke in the red cabbage, and the Sunday roast gets the taste you know from grandma's kitchen, only a bit fresher.