November 26

Today we are off to Modena to sample balsamic vinegar in its capital city, then off to the Tuscany for an overnight castle visit. It’s rough!

We said our goodbyes this morning to Roberta and Giovanna at Villa La Favorita and 

also to a swiss couple from Graubunden we had met, then drove through alternating snow, hail and rain from Alba down to Modena for our appointment with a balsamic vinegar producer there. 

 If it weren't for these granola energy bars that Darren's cousin Dale made for our trip, we would be hurting for snacks. Thanks, Dale!!

 Even in Italy, they have Ikea. This is the biggest one we've ever seen.

We drove into the center of Modena for lunch before the appointment. Decided to ask a local woman there for a suggestion. She directed us to a restaurant up above the street on the “first floor”. It was packed with local people, some of them regarded us with mixed caution and curiosity. We ate really well and in time for our appointment with the balsamic producer.  

We really had no idea what we were walking into. There was a miscommunication, and instead of driving to the production facility, we drove to a balsamic vinegar consortium office in an industrial zone on the outskirts of town. Two large rooms there were occupied there by large table in one side of the room with chairs around it. There was someone there who knew the name we mentioned, made a phone call and gave us the correct address.

We drove back across Modena, parked the car, asked around and finally found Giorgio, an unusually tall, friendly guy who took us a couple of flights of steps to the attic where between four separate rooms, we had for the first time true balsamic vinegar.  

Giorgio is a third-generation balsamic producer. He lives in a 150 year-old building that looks modest from the outside. There are some beautiful side-lighted cutouts in the ground floor revealing original tiles. He is one of about 60 producers of true balsamic vinegar in the world. He has roughly 400 barrels of varying sizes which are seated in racks against the walls of his attic, most filled with balsamic vinegar in varying ages of composition. The balsamic must be made in an attic where there is sufficient cross-ventilation of air to allow for exchange of gasses between the barrels and the outside.

Giorgio explained that traditional balsamic vinegar is the most regulated food product on earth. In order for it to be produced with the D.O.C.G. label, it has to be aged 25 years, it has to be submitted to an international panel of judges with only a number representing the producer on the label, so that there is no bias, and has to conform to a rigorous point system and fall with 225 and 255 points according to various criteria; viscosity, flavor, tannin, etc.

Many barrels are made of a mix of cherry, oak and juniper staves, although some entire production lines are exclusively of a single wood, such as oak or cherry. And these are marketed separately. In fact, the barrels for aging balsamic aren’t really intended to impart a lot of flavor the vinegar. For this reason, they are not replaced, and can be used for centuries. 

Here's the workshop.

There is a tradition in Modena, that whenever a producer brings a female baby into the world, they begin production on a line of balsamic which will become part of the daughter’s dowry when she gets hitched. The line where he demonstrated samples was from the Carlotta batch, dedicated to his only daughter.

He starts with what he calls the “Mother Barrel”, largest of all, in which he puts the fresh-squeezed grape juice with a mixture of half the must from the press of the grapes and half a mixture of “old must” from all batches past, perhaps even some composite of over a century of aging. Giorgio used a glass siphon with a thin end like a turkey baster in the mother barrel, put the other end to his mouth and pulled some out into the clear tube. It was a murky black muck that looked like motor oil. Then he did the same with each successively smaller barrel down the line until he reached the smallest, the barrel that would be producing some balsamic vinegar in the next six or seven years. Each barrel down the line had an increasingly thick and black vinegar and, although more pungeant, not as clearly smelly he explained to us because the thickness traps the aroma molecules. Here he is at work at the barrels with his siphon.

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Giorgio produces about 1 1/2 to 2 litres of balsamic for submission to the consortium each year. After the consortium judges and deems his product balanced and fit for labeling as DOCG balsamic, he bottles between 1500 and 2000 small bottles of true balsamic vinegar for sale, this compared to a non- DOCG producer who makes between 150 and 200,000 bottles a day. 

We finally got around to tasting. He had us try a batch of seven different vinegars and had a tray of biscuits for us to clear our palettes between tastings. We agreed that we are now ruined forever and will probably never appreciate balsamic again after this!   

His little elixirs range in price from between 75 and 120 euros apiece. Darren and I picked up two; a cherry aged bottle and a superior, the grandaddy of them all, made exclusively in french oak. There are recipes for them included and more recipes on his website. I would drizzle them on ice cream, make a reduction with meats, vegetable, salad, I imagine they would taste good on just about anything! Balsamic tasting party, anyone?

So then we continued our trip down through the Tuscan Appenines turned off the freeway outside of Florence and up into the hills to the castle Fonterutoli. We got there just before 7. The guy had told me over the phone that as long as we got there before 7 it would be alright, then when I showed up at 6:50, he was pissed. I think he is just disappointed that we are spending so little time and cannot fully enjoy what the place has to offer. I have to agree. It seems to me that each of the places we are staying probably merits a week or more.

We had dinner at Sotto Le Volte, a small family-run restaurant under the castle arches of the town of Castellina in Chianti. The setting was totally captivating, the food superb. All pics are on Darren's camera. We will upload this weekend. We were pleasantly surprised to find an extensive wine and champagne menu that included Jacques Selosse, one very small champagne producer from Bouzy who I had contacted but was unable to meet with us because of scheduling. So we had a bottle of his champagne with dinner. It tasted unlike any champagne we had ever tried; like creamy hazelnuts that dissolved in the mouth. My memory always gets a little fuzzy after dinner. I think I fell asleep pretty quick!