How To Make Balsamic Vinegar
Grace shares her family secrets and teaches us how her vinegar factory has perfected the art of making traditional balsamic vinegar. Creating balsamic vinegar starts with a row of barrels called a battaria. There can be 5-7 barrels in a battaria and they increase in size down the row. Grace’s battarias have six barrels containing 10, 20, 25, 30, 40 and 50 liters respectively. The wood varies between oak, ash, chestnut and cherry depending on the desired flavor. Must is boiled grape juice. Grace uses Salamino grapes which are also used to make Lambrusco wine.
This step occurs right after the fall harvest. Squeeze the grapes and boil the juice until the concentration of sugar in the juice is 1 percent (usually when the liquid reduces to half its original amount). Completely fill all barrels with must. If there is not enough liquid in the barrel, the enzymes will not activate and cannot transform the sugar into acid.
Let the battaria breathe by securing a mesh cloth over the opening of each barrel. This allows the liquid to evaporate and reduce. The following spring, replace the liquid in each barrel. Fill the smallest barrel with must from the next largest barrel. Continue down the line of barrels replacing liquid with the next largest barrel until you arrive at the largest barrel.
Fill the largest barrel with new must (that has been saved from the fall harvest). Only the big barrel gets new must. Step 5: Continue refilling the barrels each spring with must. After 5 years you may take 1 liter from the smallest barrel to sell, but you may not sell it as traditional balsamic vinegar because it is not 12 years old nor is it approved by the consortium. At this point you may continue to take 1 liter per year from the smallest barrel.
After 12 years, you may send 1 liter from the smallest barrel to the consortium. If approved, your balsamic vinegar will come back to you in 100ml bottles with official approval labels. Now and only now have you made traditional balsamic vinegar. • Consortium bottle. The consortium has specific bottles for traditional balsamic vinegar depending on the year. Troy’s photo shows the official 12 year consortium bottle and label.
I am floored by the time, care and patience required in this process. The prize is worth it, however. Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena is thick, rich, sweet, sour, complex and sends me. One drop can change your life. It did mine. My friend Ed Erickson served balsamic vinegar from Modena at a dinner party in Chicago several years back (after he brought it back from a trip to Italy).
He drizzled it over vanilla ice cream and I was forever hooked (try it on strawberries to impress your friends too.) I didn’t know it then, but that moment led Troy and I all the way to Fattoria Uccelliera. Thank you Ed. And thank you Grace and Rampons. We are so lucky to have another culinary dream fulfilled! Next… Troy and I taste this deliciousness. Balsamic recipes coming soon as well.
The Royal Glasgow Institute organises the largest and most prestigious Annual Exhibition in Scotland, which is open to all artists, with some 17 awards of cash prizes. The Galleries they normally show in art not currently available due to the fire at the Glasgow School of Art. The RWA runs two open exhibitions: the Annual Open Exhibition and Drawn. Deadline for entries / Receiving Day: Further information on submission dates, selection committee and prizes will be announced shortly.
There are various call for entries each year which are either open to all artists, open to the Friends of the RBSA or open to Members and Associates. However the pathway to information on what you need to do is not as clear as it could be. Candidates Exhibition - Work by artists seeking election to become Associates or Members. How to calculate the cost of entering a juried art exhibition - it's so exciting creating work for an art competition and hitting all your deadlines.
