How traditional balsamic vinegar is made: Cosa Mangiamo Oggi's visit
Giano and Franci of Cosa Mangiamo Oggi visit our acetaia: the batteries of barrels, racking, the Consorzio's checks and a tasting of Affinato and Extravecchio.
The video starts at the visit to the acetaia. It loads from YouTube only when you press play.
We welcomed Giano and Franci, the creators of the YouTube channel Cosa Mangiamo Oggi, to our acetaia in Casinalbo di Formigine. They were visiting Modena and looking for an authentic acetaia, not an industrial one, where they could see how traditional balsamic vinegar is really made. We let them in and took them among our batteries: the six barrels of different woods, the yearly racking, the Consorzio's checks and the family stories.
A battery is a set of six barrels of decreasing size, from around a hundred litres down to 10-15, in woods such as walnut, juniper, oak and chestnut. Racking is done once a year: the finished product is drawn from the smallest barrel, each barrel is topped up from the one before it, and the largest is replenished with cooked must, the only ingredient. Before bottling, the product goes in anonymous containers to a jury of master tasters. In Modena balsamic vinegar was so precious that it was given to daughters as a dowry.
It was a pleasure to tell them about an acetaia founded in the early twentieth century. At the end we gave them the Affinato 12 years and the Extravecchio 25 years to taste: the first with its firm acidity and sweet-and-sour notes, the second much denser, almost creamy. Before leaving they wrote a dedication in our ledger.
From the episode «Trattorie modenesi e visita in acetaia»
How traditional balsamic vinegar is made, from must to bottle
