What am I doing wrong with my Beurre Blanc?

Question

I made my first Beurre Blanc a couple days ago. It got very sour and I had to pour some sugar to sweeten it. I'm almost sure I reduced the wine and the vinegar enough before I started throwing in the butter.

I know I probably made this 2 mistakes:

I didn't measure the exact amount of wine and vinegar. I just put one glass of wine and a little stream of vinegar. 
I used distilled white vinegar, not white wine vinegar.

Are these 2 mistakes what made my sauce sour or there's something else I'm doing wrong here? I really wanna master the Beurre Blanc because I love cooking fish but I've never made a sauce for it.

Thank you guys in advance.

moscafj · Accepted Answer

Julia Child's "classic" recipe for beurre blanc uses quite a lot of butter (3 sticks) to 1/4 cup each of white wine and white wine vinegar (plus shallot and salt and pepper, with a squeeze of lemon to finish). I suspect that you (a) used too much liquid, and (b) used the wrong vinegar, leading to an overly sour/acetic sauce.

Correct answer by moscafj on December 12, 2020

Moscoffier · Answer

You don't need vinegar (although some recipes call for it). A dry white wine will provide all the acidity you need. You control the acidity by the amount of reduction of the wine. To get very controlled acidity, reduce almost to dry and then add a spoon-full of water so that your butter can emulsify. My classic proportions are (metric but can be transposed into any unit):

200g cold cubed butter
200g/200ml dry white wine
50g finely diced shallots (peeled weight)
Seasoning

Answered by Moscoffier on December 12, 2020

200g cold cubed butter
200g/200ml dry white wine
50g finely diced shallots (peeled weight)
Seasoning

What am I doing wrong with my Beurre Blanc?

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