Traditional balsamic has always been part of my life. I would almost say that I was born under a series of barrels. There has always been this tradition in the family, and I did not decide to be part of it. I was born in it.
It was my great-grandfather, Alfonso, who started the first lines of barrels, and that is where our name comes from: La Cà dal Nôn, the house of the grandfather. Many more lines followed, started by my father, who took the passion from his own grandfather. None of it was for selling. The production was for the family only, the way it still is for many families in Modena.
Since I was a little girl, I followed my father up into the lofts, always checking my batteria, my own series of barrels. There was a tradition here of starting a line of barrels when a baby girl was born, and giving it to her as a dowry on the day she married.
I started with simple tasks, and step by step I learned: the cooking of the grape must, the tastings, the travaso and the rincalzo. Little by little I came to love working with the barrels, and above all the atmosphere of the loft: the silence without time around you, and the slow rhythm that is shaping the product, a rhythm you have to know and respect if you want the true taste of traditional balsamic. That was the fascination that pulled me in.
The silence without time around you, and this slow rhythm that is shaping the product.
Mariangela, La Cà dal Nôn
The two of us, and one ingredient
Our family has made balsamic here since 1883. The farm itself my brother Michele and I founded in 1996. We were very young, but the fascination was so strong that it became a working acetaia of our own.
Today the company is the two of us. Michele cares for everything from the vineyards to the final product, and I take care of bringing people into this world and showing them how traditional balsamic is meant to be used. Our mother and father are always behind us. We are also a social farm: for parts of the work, in the vineyard and in welcoming guests, we work alongside people with disabilities through local associations, and it gives us a great deal of joy.
If I had to sum up what we make in a single word, it would be the ingredient: the cooked grape must. Traditional balsamic is the only vinegar made from nothing but cooked grape must, never from wine. To get the best possible ingredient, we grow all of our own grapes, and we pick them at the ripeness that will, over the long years of ageing, become the personality of the balsamic.
A process that never ends
Traditional balsamic is made over decades. A line of barrels is started, and every winter the work repeats: the travaso, topping up each barrel from the larger one before it to make up what the year has evaporated, and the rincalzo, feeding the largest barrel with the new cooked must of the harvest, so the yeasts and the vinegar bacteria can begin their work again.
The process never ends. It outlives the person who started the line, and is handed from one generation to the next. There is no single detail that makes or ruins it. Instead it asks the producer to build a real sensibility, a feel for the barrels, so you can follow each line and keep improving it over the years.
You cannot really speak of a batch here. Every batch is connected to the ones before it, in one long process of improvement. I would speak instead of the personality of each line, different in taste according to its age, the woods the barrels are made from, how many barrels are in the line and how large they are.
Staying close to the land, growing our own grapes, is what lets us make something this tasty, this long and persistent, and so different from much of what is on the market.
The house in Vignola
The acetaia is in the old house where my father was born, where the barrels have always been. When you visit, we welcome you into the big courtyard. The house is built of river stones, the old way of building here, the same way the medieval castle tower in Vignola was built.
In the garden live our "old ladies", two vines estimated to be between 250 and 300 years old. This is where the whole family lives, so in one place you see our home, the loft where the vinegar ages, and the room where we cook the grape must. The perfume all around is unique. Deep and persistent, intense and delicate at the same time. It opens your nose and stays with you for a long time.
You can describe the technique anywhere, and taste the balsamic anywhere. The intensity and the depth of that perfume, you find only by coming here.
All of our vineyards, twelve hectares, sit on the sweet hills of Savignano, the next village. The barrels stand in the south-east of the house, the part that gets the most sun through the day and the least humidity. They live in the lofts because they need the year's changes of temperature to regulate the slow life inside the cooked must.
The perfume opens your nose and stays with you for a long time. You find it only by coming here.
Mariangela, La Cà dal Nôn
What it tastes like
Traditional balsamic has a very complex taste. It can remind you of cooked prunes and cooked quince, with a touch of tamarind. Depending on the woods in the line, you find different nuances: chestnut, for example, gives a slightly nutty note that you can spot in the twelve-year. The taste is long and persistent, staying in your mouth for a long time, and the acidity is deep and round, with a clean finish.
The Extra Vecchio, aged twenty-five years, is more intense, a little more fruity, deeper, longer and more persistent still. You can sip it from the spoon on its own, as an aperitivo or a digestivo. It clears the mouth before a meal and after it.
At the table, the long, clean, round acidity is there to soften what is salty or fatty, and to lengthen and lift the flavour of the food. A traditional balsamic is always a finishing touch: the last few drops you add just before serving, enough to give charm even to a simple dish.
One ingredient, two ages
Both of ours are Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP, the protected designation recognised by the European Union in 2000. Both are made from nothing but cooked must from our own organically grown grapes, Trebbiano, Lambrusco Grasparossa and Pignoletto, aged in a series of barrels of oak, chestnut, cherry, mulberry and juniper.
Each comes in the small spherical 100ml bottle designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, sealed and individually numbered. The twelve-year is where real balsamic begins. The twenty-five-year Extra Vecchio is a lifetime of patience in a spoonful. A little goes a very long way.
For people who want to know what is behind it
I love working with people who are passionate about what they do, who choose their products with care rather than buying a famous name, and who want to understand what is behind a thing so they can pass that knowledge to their own customers. In The Fine Source, here in the way they work, I found exactly what I was looking for.
They began as friends in London who love food the way we do, and who decided the only honest way to carry something was to go to the source: to visit, to taste, to verify, and to carry only what they would happily put on their own table. Every product they bring you is traceable to the producer who made it.
If you ever find yourself in Modena, come and see us. Traditional balsamic is a complex thing, but we love introducing people to it, and the guests I love most are the curious ones, who ask questions and tell me what my balsamic has given them. Until then, you can bring a little of the house of the grandfather to your own table, through The Fine Source.
