Rare are the products wich can afford to rest for years before
being enjoyed: the traditional balsamic vinegar is one of them.
Such a long time is needed to reach perfection, to faithfully report
the flavour of the various wooden barrels in wich, year by year,
it rests. Its ripening and its ageing are scanned by the succession
of the season wich allow the must to work with the heat of spring
and summer and rest with chill of autumn and winter. The time and
the nature are donating us a product of inestimable value that reunites
in it tradition and the history of Modena which can easily enumerate
itself among the capitals of deliciousness.
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It's not known for sure how and when the balsamic vinegar was
born: maybe a small quantity of cooked grapes' must (called " SABA",
largely used in the cooking of Modena in the past) forgotten and
found again after a long time, having gone through a process of
natural acetification, had a sweet and sour taste. The first written
documents date back to the XI century when in a chronicle of the
benedictine Donizone, something is said about a small barrel of
vinegar given as a present by Marquess Bonifacio, Sir of the Canossa
castle and Matilda's father, to the King and future Emperor Enrico
II of Franconia in the year 1046.
Most probably already about the year 1228, at the time of Obizzo
II, at the court of the ducal family of Este, barrels of vinegar
were preserved. The diffusion of the balsamic started in the 1598
when the Duke of Este moved from Ferrara to Modena, that became
the capital of the dukedom ; there are documents of this period
that confirm the particular attention that the ducal court had for
this product that was usually reserved for the ducal family or as
a present for very important people. In the 1700 the balsamic is
already known in Europe: archives documents testify that an english
merchant and the Count Michele Woronzon, high chancellor of Moscovia,
asked the balsamic vinegar to the Duke Francesco III.
The balsamic vinegar, before being used in gastronomy, was used
for its medicamentous properties. In the treatise " of the government
of the plague and of the ways of bewaring of it " written by Ludovico
Antonio Muratori, eminent modenese scholar, he describes some remedies
based on the vinegar, useful as antidotes against the terrible disease.
Among all the devastations caused in Modena by the french revolution
there is also the auction sale in 1796 for the french republic,
of the vinegar house of Duke Ercole III, situated in the west tower
of the Ducal Palace of Modena. Probably not all the barrels were
sold : on the 4th of may 1859 the ducal vinegar reserve was visited
by Vittorio Emanuele II, the new king, and the prime minister Camillo
Benso Conte di Cavour ; the next 24th of august the prime minister
ordered to select all the best barrels and to transfer them to the
Moncalieri's castle, where, for the very poor knowledges about the
technical secrets, but this leaded to the loss of this immense treasure.
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Via F. Baracca, 6 - 40033
Casalecchio di Reno,
Bologna, Italy
Voice: +39 059 300331
Fax: +39 02 700447876
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