Kitchen Must-Have: Tax, Small Batch Vinegar Made in Melbourne Using Yarra Valley Wines

Tax Vinegar founder Fred Mora can’t help but apply a playful lens to food. The grandson of the late Melbourne art couple Mirka and Georges Mora – both icons of the city’s food and culture scene – says it’s genetic.

“My paternal grandparents’ food legacy centred around the idea that food was ultimately hilarious and nothing should be taken too seriously,” Mora tells Broadsheet. “Famously, on my grandfather’s grave is the epitaph ‘Out to Lunch’,” he says.

Mora launched Tax, a line of Melbourne-made small batch vinegars, in April this year.

For the first batch of Tax products, Mora bought finished tanked wine from Fin, a Yarra Valley collective focused on low-fi wines.

He launched the brand with a red wine vinegar made from Fin’s nouveau syrah and a white wine vinegar made using the its roussanne and a blackberry shrub (a mixture of vinegar, sugar and fruit similar to a cordial base).

“My forever inspiration is [food-waste fermenter] Furrmien, also known as Dennis Yong [ex-head chef at Parcs], who gave me my first vinegar mother, and helped me bottle this batch of Tax,” Mora says. “Then there is Vinaigrerie La Guinelle, who have been making profound wine vinegars for almost 25 years utilising some of the most interesting wines from France.”

Tax Vinegar’s first batches are crafted to retain the original wines’ qualities and flavour profiles. The red wine vinegar is fruit- and tannin-forward. The white wine vinegar is slightly salty and great for pairing with crisp greens and roast chicken.

The joyful branding includes a label, designed by Tristan Ceddia of Tric Studio, with ’90s flair and a colour palette that includes hot pink, The Matrix green and bubblegum purple. It’s intended to make the bottle a proud fixture of the kitchen bench rather than something you hide away in the cupboard.

Mora’s favourite way to enjoy Tax Vinegar is used liberally on simple dishes. “While this sounds a little dull, finding a nice vegetable at the market, cooking it just very simply, then seasoning with salt, pepper, oil and Tax is a revolution,” he says.

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