History and curiosities

Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI is among the most loved and exported Italian culinary products all over the world, as well as a highly prized condiment coming from one of the best cuisines on our planet: the Emilian one. Part of its fame is due to its ancient history: a product capable not only of giving new flavor notes to foods, but also of telling the stories of men. It is precisely thanks to this incredible and very important history that today we can enjoy a very high quality product and its characteristic and easily recognizable flavor notes.

Various sources testify that even at the time of the first Mesopotamian civilizations the use of vinegar was really massive: we are even in the third millennium BC. passing through the Ancient Egyptians, who gave a great boost to the cooking techniques of the must, we arrive at the Romans. In the first century AD, it was even Virgil in the Georgics who described the cooking of the must in the areas of Modena, a fact which leads many experts to hypothesize that the roots of the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar PDO of Modena are to be found right at the beginning of the Roman Empire.

In the Middle Ages the first revolutions in the production of Balsamic Vinegar were noticed, making a product ever closer to the refined one we know today. In this period, in fact, wooden barrels were introduced for its aging which replaced the terracotta amphorae.

With the Renaissance, a real revolution began in the food tastes of the Italian aristocracy, a fact that allowed Balsamic Vinegar to gain a place among the most loved food products. It is with the Unification of Italy that Balsamic Vinegar becomes globally recognized as a highly prized product.

In the second half of the twentieth century, we have the birth of the Consortium for the Protection of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena and Reggio Emilia and in the early years of the 2000s the birth of the Consortium of Balsamic Vinegar of Modena IGP, which sees in our CEO Francesco Toschi one of the founders.

Another curiosity handed down from generation to generation in Modena and Reggio Emilia and which mainly concerns the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar DOP is that of building a new battery of balsamic vinegar for each female heir, which will constitute the dowry for her future marriage. 

The balsamic vinegar battery is a series of at least 5 barrels of decreasing size, made of different woods, ranging from 60 liters to 15 litres. The cooked must is placed in the largest cask and then, year after year, a certain quantity is decanted into the slightly smaller cask and so on until reaching the last cask. Only from here can the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar be taken. The different woods used such as oak, chestnut, cherry give the vinegar their imprint making it unique. 

Acetaia Borgo Castello also has several batteries of this precious Black Gold, kept in our most precious aging room.

Balsamic vinegar has expressed the culture and history of Modena since time immemorial. In fact, its existence is due to the particular pedoclimatic characteristics of the production area to which the knowledge, experience and skills of the human factor have been added. In Modena, different types of vinegar obtained with must have always existed, in relation to the development in history of different recipes and different methods of preparation and aging. 

Starting from the 11th century, the production of this very particular vinegar is linked to Modena: over time it will become synonymous with the culture and history of a unique territory for its soil and climate characteristics and human knowledge and talents.

The development of the tradition of balsamic vinegar is due to the transfer of the Estensi from Ferrara to Modena in 1598. At the ducal court, vinegar was usually produced for internal consumption or exhibited as a precious gift to particularly important personalities. 

Over the centuries it was called "balsamic" for its particular therapeutic qualities. But it is only in 1747, in the cellar registers of the Dukes of Este, that the adjective balsamic appears for the first time: we speak of medium balsamic medium and fine balsamic, which correspond to the current Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PDO.