A question we are often asked is whether balsamic vinegar contains sugar.
In a diet where organic products are increasingly important, without additives. It is right to get well informed before choosing the right product to bring to your tables.
So is it balsamic vinegar without sugar?
Although some types of aged and non-aged balsamic vinegar have a sweet aftertaste. This sweetness is absolutely not given by the addition of refined sugars, but comes from the sugars naturally contained in grapes.
So how do you get balsamic vinegar?
Balsamic vinegar is a vinegar obtained from a fermentation process. The sugar contained in cooked grape must is transformed into alcohol, which is in turn converted into acetic acid by acetic bacteria (process of alcoholic fermentation and oxidation of vinegar).
In fact, during all the processing phases, the producer uses only grape must and wine vinegar. As regards all types of vinegars of Acetaia Bonacini, they do not contain coloring agents or thickeners. They are therefore 100% natural products.
But let’s understand what sugars are for in the grape plant?
Sugars, also called carbohydrates, are very important for the plant and are the result of photosynthesis. A process by which carbon dioxide is transformed into chemical compounds necessary for the plant’s metabolism.
There is a continuous variation of the ratio between glucose and fructose in the pulp and this is due to the various stages of grape ripening.
In still green grapes there is a predominance of glucose with respect to fructose; but as the maturation progresses the values are exchanged.
Fructose has a higher sweetening power (1.73) than glucose (0.74): this means that you have that characteristic sweetness of grapes when they are ripe. In ripe grapes, the glucose and fructose content is between 150 g/l and 250 g/l. Sucrose is naturally present in the grapes. Even if it is not found at very high levels (between 2 and 5 g/l) and is then hydrolysed into glucose and fructose.
Now that we know the ratio of sugars present in grapes, we can say that balsamic vinegar has no added sugars. Therefore it does not contain sugars, except the natural ones present in grapes.
