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The Secret World of the Balsamic Vinegar Elite

Vinegar is not taken lightly in Modena, Italy. One store on the main street has a couple of very small bottles of the traditional balsamico in the window-behind bars-priced at $150. A week-long vinegar conference features the mayor and food dignitaries from around Italy and the world.

Not until my second year living in Modena was I able to crack into the secret world of the vinegar elite and get a bottle for myself. I stumbled into this illustrious society when I made a grave error. I told Franco, the owner of the pet store in Vicolo Forni, about our Sunday drive up into the hills above Bologna with a couple of American friends. Once the words left my mouth, I wished I could have reached out and stuffed them back under my tongue. I blabbed to Franco about how well we ate at a little trattoria, and the delicious crescentini, a sort of flat bread, which we were told came from around Bologna. Franco was shocked and perhaps even a little offended. Fortunately he doesn't have a problem finding the right words, or as his wife says, "He likes to communicate."

Franco gently corrected me. Crescentini, also known as tigelle, originate from the hills of Modena, not Bologna, but Modena. Then he broke into a smile. "The Bolognesi were lucky to have the good people from Modena next to them to teach them how to cook properly. If it weren't for us, they'd still be wearing animal skins and beating on drums."

And so my lesson in Modenese cuisine began. Franco gestured to the huge covered market at the end of the alley. "For example, it's difficult to find true vinegar inside there, it's only an industrialized imitation. If you come to my house this Sunday, I'll show you how the real balsamico is made in my acetaio," which he defines as a room with vinegar barrels.

I had already visited an industrial vinegar maker in Modena the year before, so I was familiar with Modenese pride in their food. This company put dozens of different labels on the bottles of this vinegar to send all over the world. Last year, the man who led me around the little factory with industrial stainless steel casks let me taste their very good approximation of the tradizionale balsamic. The guide then turned red with anger and told me, "Have you heard? Neapolitans are trying to steal our recipe! They're making cheap stuff with labels saying, 'Balsamic Vinegar from Modena, made in Napoli'!" He regained his composure about the vinegar fraud and assured me, "Anyway, it's impossible to make true balsamic vinegar anywhere but Modena." When I asked why, he replied, "Oh it's the air, the grapes, the humidity, everything."

As if denying his claim of authenticity for his industrial vinegar, my guide showed me his own private, family acetaio with twenty barrels. I wiped away the cobwebs over the door, and he wiped a grubby window with his sleeve to let in a ray of light. "This is my mother!" he exclaimed with love as he pointed to a little cask in the corner. The "mother barrel" was full of the thick syrupy vinegar that he claimed was more than a hundred years old. "I would never sell my mother. If the house burns down, it's the first thing we carry outside!"

This protectionist attitude towards the real tradizionale vinegar makes it almost impossible for a Modenese to part with it. In old times, balsamico was given as a priceless dowry and still today is usually only exchanged as a gift, since all the time and effort to produce the vinegar makes it far too expensive.

An exchange student from the US was staying in Spilamberto, just outside of Modena, the real home of balsamic vinegar. Boys wanted to meet this beautiful young American girl, but didn't know what to say. Finally one approached her, whispering romantically in her ear, "I can get you some real balsamic vinegar if you want." The American student couldn't care less about some dark, stinky vinegar; she was far more interested in meeting cute boys and having fun.

The opportunity to taste the real balsamic doesn't knock every day. So I jump at the chance to visit Franco's homemade vinegar setup. Franco and his wife Georgianna pick Katy and me up early Sunday morning for a light breakfast of cappuccini and heart-stopping deep-fried dough called gnocco fritto.

We then risk the dense fog of the Padana plains, driving dangerously fast to reach their house in the country and taste this Modenese elixir. Franco's nephew meets us at the door. Franco brings us some special salami to taste. Franco's nephew protests; "Uncle, you know that I don't eat meat."

"What?" Franco shakes his head in mock dismay, "I don't understand why my own flesh and blood insists on being a vegetarian. We have the best pork in the world here and all he wants to eat is salad!"

Franco's nephew confides, "If I don't eat a bowl of tortellini every year at Christmastime, I'll be written out of the inheritance!"

After enjoying the pork products, we venture up into the little attic of Franco's farmhouse. A series of musty wooden barrels-each one smaller than the next-fills the room. The windows are wide open. Franco explains, "Vinegar is alive and must be properly aged. Besides, I love it when the whole house has this fantastic odor of vinegar. It permeates everything!" With delight, he adds, "I'm sure we'll never be able to wash the smell out of our clothes."

Franco describes the process to us. "Every November, Georgianna and I boil a big batch of white Trebbiano wine to produce the fermented juice, or must. We add a little to the biggest barrel, since almost a quarter of the liquid evaporates every year." On top of this huge barrel, a stone seals a hole in the wooden slat. Franco lifts it off. Nearly half of the rock is eaten away by the acid of the wine inside. I wonder what the vinegar must do to your stomach, but Franco assures me, "You need the acid, otherwise the vinegar would become a syrup."

Each barrel is made from a different type of wood-from juniper to chestnut-to give unique flavor to the black liquid. The vinegar is decanted from the second smallest barrel into the mother barrel, the third smallest into the second, and so on. Every year, an expert from the balsamic vinegar consortium, like a wine sommelier, tours the various acetaia (vinegar makers) to make sure the process is going as planned. "It's a very tense time," Franco tells me. "If you don't follow the process, your vinegar will be ruined. Ruined! Then you have to throw away all your bad vinegar that was begun more than a hundred years ago. This is a disaster for the family." Franco drops his head sadly in sympathy for those who have lost all of their precious liquid.

"After all this work, we only produce two liters a year, which we extract in January," Georgianna cuts in when she sees Franco bow his head. Franco recovers his gregarious manner and continues, "Now you can understand why no one wants to sell the real vinegar, since we barely have enough for ourselves. For we Modenesi, we care a lot about preserving this tradition of balsamico, and I hope in the future someone will keep looking after my barrels to produce the real vinegar from Modena." I don't dare tell Franco that I heard a company in California is now trying to produce authentic balsamic vinegar also.

After the tour, Franco bestows upon us a tiny bottle of his dark brew. I carefully wrap the four ounce bottle of priceless liquid to avoid any disastrous cracks or unnecessary shaking. Once we're back in the car, however, Franco guns the engine and swerves violently around the turns and joggles the vinegar and nearly pops the puny cork.

We make it home safely and the vinegar has survived. We pour the vinegar on everything-from splinters of parmigiano-reggiano cheese to meats, and even on desserts like fresh strawberries and gelato. Our neighbor upstairs, a little old lady with two fat dogs, hears that we visited Franco's acetaio. "Now, you must try some balsamico from my barrels," she says and hands us a bigger bottle. Over the next week, we flatter both her and Franco (separately) that their vinegar is indeed the tastiest. "Just wait until next year's batch," Franco tells us.