Guide

Allergens in balsamic vinegar

Balsamic vinegar contains sulphites. Wine vinegars and many reductions do too. A glaze on a packed sandwich or roasted-vegetable pot has to declare sulphites when the finished food is at or above 10 mg/kg.

Reviewed 23 September 2026 against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.

The usual pattern

Traditional and everyday balsamic vinegars are wine vinegar plus grape must. Sulphites are part of the wine process. A thick glaze may also contain caramel and sugar, and sometimes wheat if it is a manufactured glaze rather than reduced vinegar.

What to check in balsamic vinegar

What you see	What it means on a PPDS label
Wine vinegar	Sulphites
Some commercial glazes	Also wheat or soya
Malt vinegar	Barley, and often sulphites
Cider vinegar	Often sulphites — check

How to write it on the label

PPDS food needs the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the 14 allergens emphasised every time they appear. The Food Standards Agency’s PPDS guidance is the practical reference. A typical ingredients fragment looks like this — yours must follow the specification of the product you actually use.

Example fragment

Wine vinegar, concentrated grape must, preservative: sulphites.

Where it shows up

Glazes, salad pots, roasted vegetables, cheese tarts and sandwich drizzles.

Malt vinegar called balsamic

Malt vinegar brings barley as well as sulphites. Do not let the two bottles share a line on the recipe.

A few drops may still matter once you know the concentration. Use the supplier figure rather than a guess.

Specification first

Brands differ. Treat this page as the usual pattern, then match the label to the tub, bag or recipe in front of you.

Questions

Does balsamic always contain sulphites?

Wine-based balsamic normally does. Confirm on the bottle you use, and declare sulphites at or above 10 mg/kg in the finished food.

Is balsamic gluten-free?

Wine vinegar balsamic is not a gluten cereal. A glaze thickened with wheat, or a malt vinegar, is different.

Official sources

Everything on this page traces back to these. Where they and we disagree, they are right — tell us and we'll fix it.

Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS foodFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
Labelling guidance for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food productsFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
Food allergen labelling and information requirements technical guidanceFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK