Day Trip to Parma - Part 2: Balsamic Vinegar

After our Lucas travel group left Parma, we headed a few miles away to neighboring Reggio Emilia for a tour of the Medici Ermete balsamic vinegar production farm. This is a family owned venue and their main money-maker is wine, but they also produce vinegar as a passion project. I was really excited for this part of the trip, mostly because we would get to taste some authentic and very expensive balsamic vinegar. Traditional Balsamic Vinegar is aged for no fewer than twelve years, and the premium aged stuff for 25 years.

When we drove up to the Medici property (no, not those Medicis) we saw roses and grape vines. As soon as we stepped off the bus, we got a not unpleasant whiff of vinegar. We milled around for a few moments and then were brought to a courtyard where our guide explained the purpose of some of the old machinery sitting around. Most balsamic vinegar comes from trebbiano grapes, which is what the Medicis use. Other popular grapes for balsamic include Lambrusco and Spergola, and have to be grown in the region.

From the courtyard, we moved into a storage room filled with large barrels of vinegar. Here we learned each year the vinegar is moved to a smaller cask, and the yield is very small considering how much must you start off with. (Must is what is leftover after you press grapes for juice and remove the seeds and stems. They start the process by cooking the must until it reduces by a third or so.) The casks are made of various types of wood, and can include oak, juniper, mulberry, and cherry. The smell intensified as we went in this room - because each barrel is left with an opening in the top to allow evaporation, which is only covered with a piece of cheesecloth. I desperately wanted to peel back one of the cheesecloths and stick my finger in the barrel for a taste, but I resisted. Just so you know, I consider this an act of great restraint and moral superiority.

Our group then moved upstairs to two rooms with many more barrels, each of them smaller than those stored downstairs. (Ha, I almost said "belowdecks." You can take the girl off the buoytender, but she still uses nautical terminology in daily life.) Some of the casks were smaller than beer steins. Or canteloupes. Most of the aging is done in these upstairs rooms to take advantage of the temperature swings throughout the year. The fermentation process is carried out by special bacteria, and their life cycle needs temperature variations for them to thrive. We saw a barrel with a plaque on it, and the plaque was engraved with a name and year. It turns out one of the Medici family traditions is to gift a girl with barrels of her own balsamic vinegar casked on her birth year, to be used as her dowry later on when/if she gets married.

After our tour of the attic storage area, we moved to the tasting room across the way in a newer building. We each received tiny spoons and were treated to a history of balsamic vinegar-making - and we got to taste the 12-, 18-, and 25-year old vinegars. Yum yum yum! We learned that all of the traditional balsamic vinegars of the region must be packaged in specifically shaped 100ml bottles, and the only production information is not on the bottle or label, but a tag around the mouth of the bottle. This is so the vinegars can undergo a blind tasting by members of the balsamic vinegar consortium. These taste-testers check for color, flavor, viscosity, acidity, and...something else? I forget. Either way, I want that job when I grow up! Red seals denote 12-year products, silver is for vinegars aged 18 years, and gold seals top 25-year vinegars. As our guide said, vinegars can age indefinitely, a hundred years or more. The earliest known written reference to balsamic vinegar is from 1046! The best vinegars are sweet and tart and thick, and really shouldn't be wasted in salad dressings. Instead, you should put them on fresh fruit, particularly red berries; aged parmigiano cheese, or gelato. A very traditional antipasto in the region is to serve slivers of parmigiano next to prosciutto ham, and top them with a few drops of vinegar. You could also use the vinegar to enhance a steak or eggs or top off a nice soup, but those uses are less traditional. A very traditional use? As a digestif after dinner. Just a small mini-shot is all you need!

After our tasting experience, we went downstairs to the sales room. I learned Medici only produces about 1500 bottles each year, which works out to only 15 liters! I call that a labor of love. A 100ml bottle of 25-year balsamic vinegar sells for 90 euro in the Medici shop, with the 18- pricing at 65 and the 12-year coming in at 40 euro. I'm sure the prices would be even higher in the States. That was pretty steep for me, since I'm perfectly content buying the non-traditional vinegar for use in my home (and have three or four various bottles floating around), so I didn't buy any, but it was still a great experience.