Vincotto is a traditional Italian sweet, slightly caramelized syrup which has dark amber color and thick consistency.
It is made from filtered and cooked grape must, which is essentially the same product used as the first step in wine making
This is the reason it’s called Vincotto, which is basically the union of the words vin, short for vino (wine) and cotto, meaning cooked.
This name, however, is somewhat incorrect.
Because it is not the wine that is cooked, but the grape must (grape juice).
In some regions of Italy it’s called Mosto Cotto - Cooked Must (which is technically more correct.
What does Vincotto taste like?
Vincotto has a sweet and complex fruity flavor with hints of raisins, caramel and honey.
Can you make vincotto at home?
Absolutely! And it’s easier than you think.
Before we get to the exact recipe, here are a few things to explain the production of this magical 1-ingredient syrup.
What is Grape Must and how is it made?
Grape Must in Italian is “mosto d’uva”. Uva is grape, while mosto derives from the Latin mustum, which indicates the fresh grape juice, before it is transformed into wine through the fermentation process.
The grapes are harvested and then crushed or squeezed to extract the juice. So Grape Must is one of the first steps in the making of alcoholic beverages, such as wine and distillates. But Grape Must can become wine only if the fermentation process is activated. If not, you can use it as a base to prepare traditional recipes, such as vincotto.
What is Vincotto and how is it made?
Vincotto is made by cooking grape must (essentially fresh grape juice) for a long time. Through boiling, water is gradually eliminated in order to obtain a partially caramelized substance.
In Italian countryside, for vincotto production the grapes are left to dry on the trellises a bit longer (compared to those used for the production of wine).
Once harvested and pressed, they are cooked at first to a boiling point to bring the impurities to the surface and remove them manually with strainers.
Then the cooking is continued over low heat for many hours until the compound reaches half or less of its initial volume.
The result is a delicious sweet syrup widely used in traditional cuisine as a sweetener. Depending on the Italian region, it can take different names. Saba in Emilia Romagna, sapa in the Marche and Sardinia, sugo d’uva (grape sauce) in Calabria, while in most of Southern Italy it is called vincotto.
VINCOTTO RECIPE IN A NUTSHELL
- Wash and pick the grapes from the bunches removing any bad ones.
- Pass grapes through the juicer or through the food mill. Strain.
- Bring grape juice to a boil, then skim.
- Cook on very low heat until it's ¼ or ⅕ of the initial volume. Half through the cooking time add orange zest (optional) and remove it before vincotto is done.
Ingredients You'll Need
- Grapes - traditionally vincotto is made with extra sweet variety of grapes and it's not suitable for wine production. But you can make vincotto with any kind off grapes you have available. It’s possible to use all white grapes, all purple grapes or a mix.
- Orange Zest - an optional but highly recommended. It gives an incredible flavor to vincotto. You’ll need roughly zest from 1 orange for every 2-3 pounds (1 kg - 1.5 kg) of grapes.
Possible Add-Ons
Apples or quince apples - some vincotto makers add quince apples cut in cubes to the grape juice as it cooks. Apples is a good substitue or you can also use a mix of both. They add flavor and slightly help thicken vincotto and give it a darker color.
Tools You’ll Need
- Large stainless steel pot (for quantities listed in the recipe below it should be about 5 quarts or 5 liters capacity)
- Juicer or food mill
- Strainer
- Skimming spoon or tablespoon
- Glass bottle/s
How To Make Vincotto - Step By Step
Wash grapes under cold running water.
Remove grapes from the stems, selecting and discarding any rotten or bad ones.
Pass all the grapes through the juicer.
Filter grape juice through a strainer.
Pour filtered juice in a pot large enough to fit all the juice.
Bring to a boil on medium heat.
Skim off any foam/froth that comes to the surface.
Put the heat on very low and simmer for 1 hour.
Past 1 hour add orange zest peeled with a potato peeler.
IMPORTANT: avoid peeling the white pith which gives bitterness when cooked.
Simmer for another 60 minutes, then remove orange zest.
Cook for another 30 minutes.
Vincotto should start to make bubbles after about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
This is the time when you should start testing its thickness (consistency).
How To Test Vincotto For Doneness
Take a tablespoon of vincotto from the pot and put on the plate. Let cool. Once it’s cool stroke it with a finger.
After 2.5 hours it should not be particularly thick, but it starts to get there.
Cook for 10-15 more minutes and repeat the test. You’ll notice how it starts to become thicker.
If it has thickened to desired consistency, turn the heat off.
If not, continue cooking for additional 10 minutes and test again. The closer you get to the desired thickness the lower should be the flame (to avoid burning) and the more frequently you should do the test.
TOP TIP: turn the heat off a little BEFORE when you think vincotto is ready.
Vincotto when still hot is more liquid. When it cools it will get denser.
If you overcook it will turn into jam kind jelly, still delicious but not Vincotto anymore.
When vincotto is ready, turn the heat off and let it cool to room temperature, then bottle into clean sterilized glass bottles.
How To Store Vincotto
Vincotto can be stored in the pantry since it has very high amount of sugar when cooked correctly which acts as a natural preservative.
If you prefer you can store it in the fridge. Make sure to bring to room temperature before use.
Homemade vincotto will last for up to 1 year, even though most likely it will be still good past that time.
Top Tips For Making Vincotto At Home
- Always cook the juice immediately after passing it through the juice. If you can’t make vincotto right away, bring the juice to a boil to prevent microbial growth. Let cool and store in the fridge for max 2 days.
- Vincotto can be cooked over several days. This comes especially handy when you work with a bigger batch.
For example working with 10 liters of grape juice you can cook over the course of 3 days. Cook for 3-4 hours the first day, let cool.
Continue cooking for another 3 hours the second day and finish cooking on the 3rd day until desired consistency. - Don’t rely only on the timer, test consistency of vincotto for doneness. Various types of grapes require slightly different cooking time.
- Pay attention to not over cook it! Vincotto when still hot is more liquid. When it cools it will get denser. So it’s better to turn the heat of BEFORE you think it’s perfectly thick.
If you overcook it will turn into jam kind jelly, still delicious but not Vincotto anymore. - If you’ve noticed that vincotto is still too liquid after it has cooled you can always bring it to a gentle simmer on a very low heat and finish cooking.
You can do this the next day or even later. - Make sure your vincotto is at least ⅓ of initial juice amount. This is to be sure it has enough sugar to keep it from spoiling.
Vincotto Uses
Vincotto, Mosto Cotto or Saba, whatever name you prefer, this tasty syrup is used as an ingredient of several traditional recipes.
Due to its high sweetening power, ancient Romans used vincotto as a sweetener, replacing the more expensive honey.
Vinctto is used as a part of many traditional recipes but as a modern twist in variety of sauces and dressings.
Recipes With Vincotto
- Cartellate - calabrian Christmas dessert that looks like nests of dried dough glazed with vincotto or honey.
- Mostaccioli cookies - one of the version of mostaccioli is made with vincotto in the dough to give it flavor like no other.
- Tilicas or Caschettas - sardinian cookies filled with cream made of vincotto, almonds and orange zest.
- Pane di Sapa - lit. Sapa Bread, another traditional Sardinian dessert that looks like a small cake. Its dense and chewy, filled with various nuts and orange zest.
Simple Ways To Use Vincotto
- drizzled over fresh ricotta cheese - this is how nonnas stills serve it the kid (big and small)
- drizzled over fresh fruit
- as a sauce to go with cheese platter
- as an ice-cream topping
- as a glaze for roasted vegetables & meat
FAQs
Vincotto is basically the union of the words vin, short for vino (wine) and cotto, meaning cooked. The name is actually incorrect because it is not the wine to be cooked, but the Grape Must (juice) before its fermentation.
No. Authentic Vincotto is made with freshly squeezed grape juice or sometimes called grape must (that can be further cooked and transformed into vincotto or fermented and transformed into wine).
Whine you cannot make Vincotto using wine, the opposite can be true.
You can make wine using Vincotto or better to call it cooked grape must in this case, which was reduced less that it would have been for thick Vincotto syrup.
In Italy there’s a type of wine made starting with cooked grape must, typical just of Abruzzo and the Marches. Its name is very tricky because it is similar to vincotto but separated: vino cotto (cooked wine.
Grape Must is the "raw" product of pressing the grapes, composed of liquid but also of some solid parts: pulp, small fragments of stems, pomace (i.e. grape skins), and seeds. All components that must be filtered to obtain grape juice.
Not at all. Molasses is a byproduct of the sugar refinement process. So it is basically what remains after the sugar crystals have been removed, starting from sugarcane or sugar beets.
Full Recipe
Vincotto Recipe
Ingredients
- 10 pounds grapes (white, purple of a mix of both), about 4.5 kg
- 3 large untreated oranges , zest only
Instructions
- Wash grapes under cold running water.10 pounds grapes
- Remove grapes from the stems, selecting and discarding any rotten or bad ones.
- Pass all the grapes through the juicer.
- Filter grape juice through a strainer.
- Pour filtered juice in a stainless steel pot large enough to fit all the juice.
- Bring to a boil on medium heat.
- Skim off any foam/froth that comes to the surface.
- Put the heat on very low and simmer for 1 hour.
- Past 1 hour add orange zest peeled with a potato peeler. IMPORTANT: avoid peeling the white pith which gives bitterness when cooked.3 large untreated oranges
- Simmer for another 60 minutes, then remove orange zest.
- Cook for another 30 minutes.
- Vincotto should start to make bubbles after about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
- This is the time when you should start testing its thickness for donness (see NOTE #1).If it has thickened to desired consistency, turn the heat off.If not, continue cooking for additional 10 minutes and test again. The closer you get to the desired thickness the lower should be the flame (to avoid burning) and the more frequently you should do the test.
- When vincotto is ready, turn the heat off and let it cool to room temperature, then bottle into clean sterilized glass bottles.
Notes
Take a tablespoon of vincotto from the pot and put on the plate. Let cool. Once it’s cool stroke it with a finger. After 2.5 hours it should not be particularly thick, but it starts to get there. Cook for 10-15 more minutes and repeat the test. You’ll notice how it starts to become thicker. NOTE #2 IMPORTANT: turn the heat off a little BEFORE when you think vincotto is ready. Vincotto when still hot is more liquid. When it cools it will get denser. If you overcook it will turn into jam kind jelly, still delicious but not Vincotto anymore.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Why Vincotto is different everytime you make it?
Juice Yield
The same amount of grapes might produce different amount of juice. Some grapes are juicer other have more pulp.
Cooking Time
If you make a few batches of vincotto you’ll notice how sometimes with the same amount of initial grape juice you’ll need to cook it for less or more time to get the same consistency.
Vincotto made with very sweet grapes will cook faster than vincotto made with medium sweet grapes.
WHY: sweet grapes have higher sugar content thus will caramelize (thicken) faster.
Thickness
Different batches of vincotto (made with different variety of grapes) will have different consistency and different yield if cooked all for the same amount of time.
This is the reason why you should not rely strictly on the timer.
Final Yield
All of the above lead to different final yield of vincotto.
So if you want to have the same Vincotto thickness every time you make it, do the test explained above.
If you don’t care about the thickness much, make sure it’s reduced at least to ⅓ of the initial juice to be able to preserve it.
Vincotto Calculations
Estimated Cooking Time
Rough cooking time estimate is equal to the amount of grape juice you started with, but unusually it’ll take a little more.
Examples:
2.5 liters will cook in 2.5 hours (or more)
5 liters of grape juice will cook in 5 hours (or a little more)
10 liters will cook in 10 hours or a little more.
Estimated Yield
Depending on the consistency you are looking for AND on the sweetness of the grapes you should roughly aim to get ¼ or ⅕ of vincotton from the initial amount of juice.
Never aim for less than ⅓.
Examples:
2.5 liters of juice will yield 600 ml or less of vincotto,
5 liters of grape juice will yield 1250 ml or less of vincotto
10 liters of grape juice will yield 2.5 liters or less of vincotto
Vincotto Calculation Examples
3.5 kg very sweet grapes make 2.6 liters of juice.
Took 2.5 hours to cook. At 3 hours they were overcooked.
Produced 400 ml of vincotto.
3.5 kg medium sweet grapes made 2.5 liters of juice.
Took 3 hours to cook to medium thick consistency.
Produced 550 ml of vincotto (since I didn
4.5kg medium sweet grapes made 2.5 liters of juice.
Took 3.5 hours to medium thick consistency.
Produced 400 ml of vincotto.
If you have any other questions I'm happy to answer them in the comments.
The most important part is to give it a try.
Making Vincotto at home is easier than it looks!
Chris says
Came out great. Simmering time was about 2 hours
Svitlana says
Happy to hear it turned out great! Thank you for trying my recipe, Chris 🙂
Chris says
It took about 2 hours to cook down but it’s delicious.
Made it as I had a crispy Brussel Sprout recipe that called for vincotto drizzle. It’s very good on the sprouts!
Svitlana says
I missed this earlier comment somehow! Yes, it's pairs wonderfully with brussel sprouts! Try it also with roasted peppers or pumpkin.
fran says
thank you for the recipe, but can i Use store bought grape juice instead of must or grapes/
Theresa says
What types of grapes are used to make the vincotto
Svi @ ItalianRecipeBook says
Traditionally vincotto is made with extra sweet variety of grapes that is not suitable for wine production. In Italy, each region has its own local grape varieties. You can make vincotto with any kind of grapes you have available. It’s possible to use all white grapes, all purple grapes or a mix of the two. The sweeter grape variety is the better.