There are many great wine regions of the world from France to California to South Africa to Australia. Likewise, there are many great olive oil producing regions, many in the Mediterranean but also in California and other regions as well. What are the great regions for vinegar though? Vinegar is often mass produced but some regions retain a title as … Read More
Vinegar Aging and Value
Read the full book on the history of vinegar, Vinegar, The Eternal Condiment available on Amazon! Besides raw material, one of the big differentiators between premium and regular vinegars is the aging process. This can range from 2 months for Balsamic of Modena IGP to 6 months for basic sherry vinegar to 12 years for Gran Reserva Sherry or 25 … Read More
Could balsamic vinegar ever become an asset class?
I have a feeling every oenophile that clicks on this post is probably laughing hysterically at the headline. For decades, fine wine has been bought and sold by not just individuals but also auctioned in high end auction houses such as Southeby’s and Christie’s for ungodly sums due to fine wine’s ability to both retain its value and grow in … Read More
High temperatures threaten balsamic vinegars in Italy
A recent story in the vinegar world of Italy is the effect of extended record high temperatures on traditional balsamic vinegar makers in Modena and Reggio Emilia. In particular, the ‘il caldo africano’, a heavy, hot wind that blows into Italy from North Africa, has set record high temperatures for weeks of July and August. This is not as much … Read More
Balsamic Vinegar’s Manufacturing Process
See part I on the history of balsamic and part II on the types of balsamic Balsamic vinegar’s manufacturing process depends heavily on the type of balsamic as mentioned in the previous post. While almost all varieties use wine vinegar, even the presence of grape must is not a given with generic balsamic vinegar or balsamic condiments. We will … Read More
Understanding the Types of Balsamic Vinegar
See the first post on the history of balsamic vinegar here As stated in our last post, a measure of the growth of the balsamic vinegar industry is that as late as 1987, only 3,000 bottles of balsamic vinegar were being produced per year. By 2002, that number had become 100,000 bottles. This represented an average annual growth rate of … Read More
A History of Balsamic Vinegar
Read the full book on the history of vinegar, Vinegar, The Eternal Condiment available on Amazon! Balsamic vinegar’s origins are obscure. Some assert they go back to the Roman Empire with fermentation of the grape must sapa. Others believe that, like butter, it may have existed but its true development came during the Middle Ages. The term ‘balsamic’ itself comes … Read More