ACETAIA
Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, from now on ABTM (Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena) , is one of the oldest product and certainly the most typical in the landscape of agricoltural food production in the province of Modena.
Its origins are uncertain, someone assumes that its birth was random: as the Traditional Balsamic derived from natural fermentation and acidification followed by a long-time aging of cooked grape must, it appears legitimate that the product was born by chance by triggering of these microbiological processes in cooked grape must containers (saba, typically used in the cuisine of Modena was already known in the Roman era and used as a sweetener together with honey) and then human intervention has subsquently developed the production tecnique still used.
The Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena is obtained from cooked grape must immediately after crushing ( before the winemaking process of the grapes begin ).
The cooking of the grape must represents the main feature that distinguishes the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena from any kind of wine vinegar.
Cooked must is thenmatured for slow acidification derived from natural fermentation and progressive concentration by long aging in a series of barrels of different woods, without any addition of other substances.
" With its load dark and shiny brown colour, it expresses its density in a correct and smooth syrupy. It has the characteristic and complex penetrating perfume, self-evident, but pleasant and harmonious acidity.
It has traditional and inimitable taste and well-balanced agro, it is generously full, sapid with velvety, according to its olfactory features."
A BIT OF HISTORY
Documents certifying the exact time and place where Traditional Balsamic Vinegar was originated don't exist.
Products similar to it, musts and vinegar variously mixed, were already consumed in the early Middle Eastern civilizations, in the ancient Greece and in the Imperial Rome. References to the use of sweet and sour vinegar follow one other over the centuries: ancient literature makes repeated hints to them alongside historical figures and events.
With the passage of time, bibliographic spiral tends to move between Ferrara ang Reggio Emilia and then centers in the city of Modena where Este Ducal Court -from which the first documents with a precice and detailed quote of the balsamic vinegar emerge- moved from Ferrara in 1598.
It therefore seems that the ducal richness had first tasted and then did a local product, existing for some time to appear matured and appreciable.
Since then the Balsamic vinegar and the city of Modena continued along the course of history.
The Balsamic becomes, then, something definite, rooted in tradition, a precious jewel result of no longer random techniques, but of treated and systematic operations.
In 1796, after occupying Modena, the french, led by Napoleon, dismantled the ducal acetaias by selling their vinegar barrels to the wealthiest families in the city.
Only after 1815 it was possible to reconstruct the ducal acetaia. The following years were prolific of documentations reguarding the Balsamic: preminent figure in that period was Duke Francesco IV who was an attentive admirer of that vinegar.
Even King Vittorio Emanuele II, welcomed in Modena the 4th May 1859, was amazed by the "black jewel" found in the garret of the Ducal Palace. The attraction was strong enough to push the king to order the transfer of the best barrels in Piedmont in the royal castle Montallieri.
There were no more news of those barrels.
The following year, as the only coincident, the wine expert Ottavio Ottavi asked some information, in the shadow of the Garland, at Francesco Aggazzotti on how to conduct an acetaia (everybody understand that the new environment was causing the shutdown of that vinegar so rooted in Modena).
Taking inspiration from an anonymoous manuscript of '700, Aggazzotti replied with a letter that it became, in practice, the basis for producing the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.
The ABTM D.O.P Solai Vecchi is handed down by family tradition, now more than a houndred years, to cook slowly over a direct flame in the open air the not yet fermented grapes' juice -after separating them from the marc- called must.
This process takes place immediately, after the late harvest of local grapes such as Trebbiano and Lambrusco, towards the end of september. With firing, a variable amount of water evaporates and the microbial initially present in the must -that would otherwise tend to turn into wine- devitalises.
Cooked must reduced to art according to the family recipe, it is decanted in a large ino oak until spring, when it enters the so-called "cask mother" or "abbess" the natural laboratory where prescious and selected yeast cultures, ferments and acetobacters create long fermentation processes acetic oxidation.
At the acetaia, Solai Vecchi, aging process and how much slower, patient and meticolous imaginable. Just think that musts in the process of acidification are kept for at least 5 years in French oak tonneaux and barriques and sicilian chestnut barrels for an optimal completion of oxidative processes.
Then the maturation process moves to the next step: the must now acetified is finally transferred to the so-called "battery", that's to say a series of barrels of precious woods such as chestnut, oak, mulberry, locust, cherry with decreasing capacity(from 75 litres to 10 litres) each of which can give unique balsamic aromas, flavors and fragrances.
