VINEGAR : IN THE KITCHEN : It Was a Naive Young Vinegar . . .

While it’s true that the familiar Spanish proverb advises a salad maker to be “a spendthrift with oil and a miser with vinegar,” it’s important to remember that this well-worn dicho refers to quantity, not quality.

Still, after tasting through a dozen red wine vinegars the other day in The Times Test Kitchen, it’s apparent that while you shouldn’t buy the cheapest brand available, neither is it necessary to buy the most expensive.

Indeed, the mere fact that--without extensive searching--we could find almost a dozen different red wine vinegars shows the remarkable proliferation of the product. Once a wallflower in the grocery store, acetic acid has come into its own. In the two chain stores and one Italian deli where we shopped, the shelves were packed with vinegars of all colors and flavors.

If we had cast our nets a little wider, we could still be tasting today. Include white wine, Sherry, Champagne and balsamic vinegars and you could easily put together a tasting three or four times the size of this one. And if we had spread the search even further--including those too-trendy flavored vinegars--we’d have sipped so much acid that none of us would have a tooth left in our head.

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It’s important to remember that tastings, especially of something like vinegar, are remarkably unscientific procedures. Actually, after tasting through the samples once, I went back and tasted again and found that a couple I had disliked on the first go-round were now distinctly better once my mouth got used to all that acidity. The very tartness that makes a good vinegar is a bit disabling when that vinegar is tasted by itself.

In judging these vinegars, I was looking for wine or grape smells and flavor, a nice “pointed” (rather than harsh) acidity and an absence of musty, chemical odors and tastes.

Here’s what I found. Rather than assigning numerical scores or a hard ranking, I’ve grouped the vinegars in three rough bunches. Since the wines come in differently sized bottles, I’ve broken down the price per 100 milliliters to provide an easier comparison.

GOOD

* Badia a Coltibuono “Aceto di Vino” ($2.99 per 100 milliliters): Pale red, but tart, fruity and complex. “This is delicate but not wimpy,” said one taster.

* Dal Raccolto “Chianti Red Wine Vinegar” (96 cents/100 ml.): Fresh pale red color, smells grapey, nice sharp flavor.

* L’Estornell “Garnacha Tinto Fine Wine Vinegar” ($2.02/100 ml.): It’s noticeable that this is from a different grape and made in a different style. At first, it seemed a little funky-chemical, but on second tasting, was more sherried and complex.

* Il Frantoio “Aceto d’Oro” ($1.60/100 ml.): Great bottle, nice vinegar--fruity, yet pointed.

ACCEPTABLE

* Bella Cucina “Cabernet Vinegar” ($2.80/100 ml.): Less vinegary than most, some fruit in nose; sweet, heavy fruit in taste.

* Sutter Home “California Premium Red Wine Vinegar” (66 cents/100 ml.): Somewhat fruity nose, not very sharp, full bodied.

* Pascarelli & Jones “Cabernet Oak Barrelled Vinegar” ($1.60/100 ml.): Very tart, some raspberry fruit, heavy taste.

UNACCEPTABLE

* Four Monks “Red Wine Vinegar” (40 cents/100 ml.): Harsh, dirty and chemical tasting.

* Monari Federzoni Red Wine Vinegar (50 cents/100 ml.): Pale orange and funky.

* Progresso “Red Wine Vinegar” (64 cents/100 ml.): Pink, vinegary smell, but very soft--you can drink this one straight.

* Regina Red Wine Vinegar (48 cents/100 ml.): Pink, brown, soft, sweet and thin. “The white Zinfandel of vinegars,” remarked one taster.

This tasting was far from encyclopedic. We didn’t find--and so didn’t taste--three of the top four finishers in a similar 1993 tasting by Cook’s Illustrated magazine: their winner, Heinz Gourmet Fine Wine Vinegar; and third and fourth place Paul Corcellet Red Wine Vinegar and Maison Martin Pouret Bordeaux Wine Vinegar.

Also, one of our favorite vinegars, the Badia a Coltibuono, finished well down in the Cook’s Illustrated tasting, below even Regina. Go figure.

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So do you need to spend the $14.95 for a bottle of Badia a Coltibuono? After all, how often do you taste vinegars straight? Once it’s mixed into a salad dressing, just how much difference does a great vinegar make?

To find out, I blended a few vinegars in a simple vinaigrette (three parts olive oil, one part vinegar, pinch of salt). It turns out that--even in a minority position--a good vinegar makes a difference. When made with Four Monks, for example, the dressing tasted flat and dull. When made with Frantoio, the mix was sparkling and complex.

But we also found you don’t have to break the bank buying vinegar. When we compared vinaigrettes made with two of our favorite oils--pricey Badia a Coltibuono and Dal Raccolto, which costs less than a third as much--the differences were less evident. The Badia did have a little extra complexity, but the Dal Raccolto, which can be found in most grocery stores, produced a very nice vinaigrette.

I guess when buying vinegars, the point is to be neither a spendthrift nor a miser.