It's known that the Balsamic Vinegar produced in Modena has a thousand-year history. Less well known is the existence of two distinct types of this "Balsamic": the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PDO of limited production reserved for special occasions and with an exclusive price and the Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI which, with a wide range of quality, presentations and prices, enriches our tables every day.
In fact, their existence is due to the particular pedoclimatic characteristics of the territory, to which have been added the knowledge, knowledge and skills of the human factor which in an admirable synthesis have given life to an exclusive and distinctive product of the territories of the current provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia (that is of the ancient Estense Duchy). The origin of these products dates back to the tradition of the ancient Romans.
The term Balsamic is relatively young, used for the first time in the registers of the ducal inventories of the Estense Palace of Modena in 1747 and probably the name itself arose from the therapeutic use that was then made of it.
With the birth of the Italian State (1861) the awakening of the markets has gradually aroused more and more interest regarding Balsamic, also developing considerable historical and bibliographic research around this product which, timidly emerging from the secrecy and rituality of the Acetaie, inevitably collected a lot success.
In 1839 Count Giorgio Gallesio, a scholar of the time famous for his impressive work "La Pomona Italiana", an important treatise on arboriculture, stopped on a visit to the residence of his friend Count Salimbeni di Nonantola, to study the variety of grapes and wines from the Modena area, he was so impressed and intrigued by his friend's family Acetaia, that he dedicated several days to studying production techniques.
In fact, their existence is due to the particular pedoclimatic characteristics of the territory, to which have been added the knowledge, knowledge and skills of the human factor which in an admirable synthesis have given life to an exclusive and distinctive product of the territories of the current provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia (that is of the ancient Estense Duchy). The origin of these products dates back to the tradition of the ancient Romans.
The term Balsamic is relatively young, used for the first time in the registers of the ducal inventories of the Estense Palace of Modena in 1747 and probably the name itself arose from the therapeutic use that was then made of it.
With the birth of the Italian State (1861) the awakening of the markets has gradually aroused more and more interest regarding Balsamic, also developing considerable historical and bibliographic research around this product which, timidly emerging from the secrecy and rituality of the Acetaie, inevitably collected a lot success.
In 1839 Count Giorgio Gallesio, a scholar of the time famous for his impressive work "La Pomona Italiana", an important treatise on arboriculture, stopped on a visit to the residence of his friend Count Salimbeni di Nonantola, to study the variety of grapes and wines from the Modena area, he was so impressed and intrigued by his friend's family Acetaia, that he dedicated several days to studying production techniques.
His handwritten notes, found in 1993 in Washington in the United States, constitute the oldest "technical" document describing the Vinegar Production Regulations in Modena. In a completely up-to-date way it describes and classifies Vinegars in two categories: those obtained from "cooked must only" and those obtained from "fermented must and vin cotto", defining the first as "excellent", the other as "pure excellent". At the end of the nineteenth century Balsamic Vinegar of Modena begins to appear in the most important fairs, creating great interest not only in the territory but also at an international level.
