Traditional Balsamic Vinegar as Coded by Us

Abstract

There are several descriptions of how to make balsamic vinegars. Benedetti mentions 21 traditional methods that are still practiced on a household level (Benedetti 2004), some of these are quite unusual, others are reasonable but very generic. In Chap. 2 methods are also described for producing balsamics "artificially" and quickly. In general, all the protocols appear more like cooking recipes than industrial processes. Furthermore, the PDO product regulations do not provide enough details to serve as instructions for making TBV. The product regulations describe the permitted grapes, production area, and other information on packaging, but no details are provided as regards the basic production steps: how long the must needs to be cooked, or even more importantly how to ferment or acetify the base wine (BW).Recently, a procedure was patented (Patent BO2011A000132) perfectly compatible with the product regulations for TBV, which clearly sets out all the steps for TBV production. Ideally, the process is divided into four main stages, with a separate description of the characteristics of the grapes. The grape composition is an important component of TBV quality, because, as for wine, grapes play an important role to the sensory properties of vinegars. In particular, the balance between sweetness, acidity, and pungency is determined by the ratio of titratable acidity/sugars in the grapes.The four stages (Fig. 5.1) are:• Cooking of grape must (GM)• Alcoholic fermentation of cooked must (CKM)• Acetic fermentation of base wine (BW)• Maturation