The Secrets in the Barrel

We pulled up to a beautiful yellow house and I was a little confused. It was in a neighborhood and didn’t look anything like I expected. We walked into an extraordinary lobby with no production room in sight.

Our tour guide began by talking about the family and the house. The family began making Balsamic in 1850 and the house is the original location. The art has been passed down for 5 generations and nothing except the grape juice boiled has changed.

At this point we headed up three fights of stairs to the attic. When I entered the room the smell of sweet balsamic filled the air like syrup. I wanted to bottle it and wear it as perfume! They use the article because it gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter,
Mimicking the climate the grapes were grown in and the artisans before controlled environments.

The woman explained that the barrels are all originals. The oldest is from 1860 and the just build new barrels around the old ones to patch leaks so the old flavors are never lost. The new barrels are then Painted in the old vinegar sediments mixed with water (hence the black appearance). This sediment is naturally resistant to humidity and protects the barrels and vinegar.

The process begins with Trebbiano (white) and Lambrusco (red) grapes. Only the juice is used and the justice is poured into a large cooking pot and cooked for two days. The percent of white to red grapes (and the order of the barrel woods) is the only difference between the 30 certified Modena traditional balsamic producing families. This family uses 80% white and 20% red juice for a sweeter (rather than a more acidic balsamic).

After two days the balsamic goes into the first and largest barrel. Each barrel has no cap, only a cloth covering the opening. This allows the balsamic to evaporate and reduce.

Every year they use a syringe to replace the evaporated vinegar. The smallest looses 10% so 10% is taken from the second smallest and placed in the last. Then 20 % is taken from the third smallest and placed in the second smallest. This happens with all six barrels and 60% is taken from the largest and placed in the second largest.

The barrels are made out of Cherry, chestnut, mulberry, oak, or juniper. The Oder the balsamic moves through these barrels also defines the families style and the flavor of the balsamic. The barrels are so fragile they have never been moved, only the long syringe moves balsamic from one barrel to the next.

A traditional Modena Balsamic Vinegar must be a minimum of 12 years old (earns a yellow cap and traditional band). The 25 year earns a gold cap and band. The small barrel that this 25 year old is in is called the “queen barrel”. It takes130 L cooked grape must to make five .5 L bottles. Also, The producers cannot bottle their own traditional balsamic. Anything younger than 12 months they can, like their flavored vinegars and “Classico” vinegar. The controllers have the bottles and each batch is tasted and judged before it earns it’s special short bottle and colored cap.

A barrel, empty, sells for about 40,000€, and the producer has 3,000 barrels on sight. They produce the vinegar only with grape juice, nothing is added unless it is a flavored vinegar. Those have only white grapes plus pure juice of what ever flavor you want, like Fuji apples.

At our tasting we tried every variety of vinegar available:
#1 – 100% white grapes aged only 5 years in an ash wood barrel. It was very sweet and is good for Fish, salad/arugula, fresh fruit.

2- 100% white grapes aged 8 years in an ash barrel. It is Sweeter/ more concentrated and is enjoyed on the Same food as # 1

3- Classico – 80% white 20% red. It’s aged for 6 years in the exact same way as the 12 and 25. It is good on Salads, tomatoes, mozzarella everyday dressing. Semi-sweet flavoring makes it versatile.

4- Traditional with yellow cap – aged 12 years and is only eaten in small (drop sized) amount on meats, omelet, proteins, risotto, etc. Semi-sweet with layers of flavor.

5- Traditional with gold label – aged for 25 years,and is used on dessert food and as a dinner finisher for digestion.

Flavored Vinegars included:
Aged 5 years White grapes + juice
Fig – cheese or meat
orange – Salads and fresh fruit
vanilla – desserts
mint – desserts
Fiji apple – misc

We also tried a Walnut liquor that was 40% alcohol. It just tasted like nuts to me though. We also tried a balsamic and caramelized onion marmalade which was interesting.

I really enjoyed learning how my favorite food condiment was made. The tour guid was lovely and it was fun to taste the quality compared to what we are use to.

We drove home after this (3 hours again) and went to get vegetables. I ended up with chicken, mushroom rice, and cooked spinach. Then we walked a bit and was the Florence Boar. We rubbed his nose for luck and dropped coins in to ensure a return some day. We finished the day with Grom (extra dark chocolate,
Milk & mint, and raspberry). We spent the evening packing out bags since tomorrow is our last full day here 😦 It will be a fun last day, but I’m sad to feel it coming to a close! I hope to post tomorrow evening, but our final meal goes till midnight so we will see! We hope to see the inside of the Duomo tomorrow! Talk to you later!

Fruit Juice – a lesson in Extra Virgin Olive oil!

Pruneti is a 4th Generation family Extra Virgin Olive Oil company located in Chianti. They only produce four types of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, there are only 3 types of olives and they make separate oils from each type. The last type is a mix of all three types of olives.

First our tour guide talked about the vision of the two sons currently running the facility. They want to respect the old ways, but they believe you shouldn’t sacrifice everything in the name of tradition, accept only the changes that will improve the product. They also consider olive Oil a fruit juice because the process is similar to pressing and squeezing juice out of oranges. Their products are 100% olive oil, so nothing is added to a batch to improve taste. The flavor comes from the juicing process and it’s steps.

Their production facility has 150 acres of fields and 2,600 olives trees. All trees are harvested by hand by 60 seasonal workers from October to November. This is different than the large industries because the have to use machines because they plant and produce such large quantities. Pruneti focuses on quality not quantity. He explained that even though they only use three types of olives, that in Tuscany alone there are more than 250 types of olives, while Spain only has 50 kinds left due to large industries only wanting the heavy oil producing olives.

We then moved into the production room. (yes it takes ONE living room sized room to product quality oil.) he explained that the highest quality oil comes from olives pressed ASAP after picking. Depending on the year 400 kg of olives produce about 50-60L oil. Their production presses an olive about 4 to 5 hours after it has been picked. This keeps the olive from changing, oxidizing, and loosing nutrients. Olives are also pressed cold (27C) to preserve their colors, taste, polyphenols, and vitamins. (The
industry tends to heat olives because the olive will product more juice that way) To prevent any oxidization when pressing and slicing the machinery replaces oxygen with nitrogen.

The steps/machines needed to produce olive oil are:
1. Cleaner – remove twigs and leaves and dust rom picking using cold water.

2. Pressing machine – breaks olives and makes olive paste. This Machine can crush or slice (depending on the olive type)

3. Mixer- Put paste into a machine that mixes slowly to physically separate oil (10 to 20 minutes)

4. Large Centrifuge – to separate oil+water from all other compounds (fast and loud)

5. Small centrifuge- this one moved in the opposite direction and delayed the water and oil. Oil floats up and water drains down.

6. Filter- oil is pushed though a paper flirted to have clean oil. Oil needs to be filtered so no pieces enter the bottle and turn it rancid quicker.
7. Tanks- Finished oil is stored in stainless steel tanks with out oxygen and below 27 C
8. Bottler- the oil is bottled once and order is placed by a buyer.

Olive oil is not better with age unlike wine so they try to produce and sell the oil quickly. They produce about 40,000- 60,000 L per year depending on the quality of the harvest.

The left over remnants like the pit and skin are either burned like wood (pits) or turned in to gas (skins) for energy. They are trying to find a way to purify the water that comes out of the olives and use it to water the fields. They call it producing “Energy from Rubbish”. They are working to get 100% use from each olive.

We moved upstairs next to the tasting room to learn more about their product and how to taste it. Extra Virgin Olive Oil acidity ranges from .12(top quality) to .8 (bottom limit to be called Extra Virgin). The time between picking and pressing and last centrifuge determine acidity. Oil color doesn’t matter because the type of olive can alter the color. In general green is younger/better oil, but this isn’t always true. Only smell and taste can dictate quality.

The proper way to test oil is to smell it first and then taste it. To smell you cover the top with one hand to trap the smell and warm the bottom with the other to increase the intensity. After about 30 seconds hold the cup near your nose, remove the top hand, and smell. A good oil should smell fresh and like herbs or grass. To taste the oil you have to take only a small amount (4-5 drops) in your mouth, rest it on your tongue and sip in air. This removes the water on your tongue and allows the oil to settle and you to taste the real flavor. Here are the smell and tasting. Results from our 3 oils:
1. Lecanti – smell fresh cut grass (good), grass, spice ( fresh vegitale fruitiness and spicy ness) pungent
2. Pachino – soft smell, vegitale and then intense spicy after
3. Frantoio – arugula smells. Butter spicy and vegetable
4.Mystery – low quality, soapy favor, no smell olive oil

While we waited for our food we learned the story of the black chianti rooster. When Italy was divided by cities in the medieval times Chianti was desired by Florence and Siena. To settle who would get Chianti they created a race. A man and horse from each city were chosen and they met in the middle of the two cities. The race was to begin when the “rooster crows”. The Siena people took care in choosing their horse and rider while the Florentines took care in choosing and caring for the rooster. They made sure the rooster would crow in the dead of night and startle the Siena man while the florentine would be prepared to ride. Florence one the race and chianti adopted the rooster as their symbol.

After this story our tasting food arrived. It consisted of:
Mozzarella with poor quality oil
Mozzerella with oil #3
bread with cheese with oil #1
bread with Canalinni beans with oil #2

The poor quality oil was still soapy
But the rest were delicious combos. Next they brought us a sampling of Fabbri pasta (old grain pasta from previous post) with the mixed olive oil and fresh Parmesan cheese. It was excellent!! We got a red, young, standard food chianti wine with our meal. It was decent with the pasta but not the best match.

Lastly we finished with chocolate gelato with a drizzle of olive oil. (Yes you read that right, olive oil!) honestly, it was great! The flavors blended perfectly and the texture was really creamy.

After we tasted we thanked the owners, bought some oil and headed back to Florence for our pasta making course! 😀 (see more in next post.) it was a fascinating experience learning about pasta and oil. I hope you learned something too!

Never going home…

We started off today with another yummy breakfast! After we headed to the Piazza Indipendenza to meet our bus. We toured Pienza, a winery, and Montepuciano. The bus was dinky, hot, and smelled like dust so the ride made me feel a bit queezy. We stopped at a Autoplaza (truckstop) for bathrooms about half way there. At the stop they had these cool drinks that are frozen coffee drinks. We all tried different flavors for fun.

It took a total of 2 hours and 25 minutes to get to our first stop Pienza. There we toured a church from 1462 and got pictures of the 1st beautiful view of the day. Finally went to visit a famous Pecorino cheese maker. We tasted a 3 month old (red), 6 month covered and aged in ash and olive oil (black and my opinion the best), and a 9 month covered and aged in straw. It is a goat cheese and the black 6 month old one seemed to have the most flavor to me.

After Pienza, we boarded the bus and headed to the Organic/Green Winery in the hills of Montepuciano. The drive up was terrifying it was worth every second. The view was beyond stunning and the winery itself was a wort of art and love.

The winery was fascinating. All wines served 2012 or old are Organic, their old wines are not yet because they are only serving 2010 currently but in 2016 when the 2012 red wines are ready they will be organic. The young wines are fermented in steel tanks to keep oxygen out. This allows the winery to not use sulfates in these wines. These wines only ferment for a maximum of 4 months. The older wines start in the metal tanks then move to the large wood barrels(4,700ml). I never heard where the wood for the barrels came from (guide talked quickly and we are a large group so I didn’t hear). The age in these barrels up to 12 months, then they are transferred to the smaller barrels if they are to be aged further. The smaller (300L) barrels in the deep basement. These barrels are all placed in rolling cylinders for easy turning.

The building itself is amazing. It is as sustainable as possible. They have a vertical garden growing around the walls those keep the building cool, they have tubes with mirrors (those odd glass bulbs you see above found behind me) that prove all the cellar light so no artificial light is needed. They use their own filters to catch and make rain water safe on their grounds. Also the burn all the dead vine branches for heating in the winter months. All the furniture is made from recycled materials like old wine barrels, etc. It really was an amazing tour!

After the tour we sat for lunch and our tasting. First came the Obvius Rosé young wine (2012). This wine was not filtered and has no sulfates, it was 90% cenogiovasi grapes , and 10% mix of grapes (six total). They said it paired well with: appetizer, fish, salad, and summer and was meant to be served cool. Shortly after We were served the local special pasta called Pichi (long spiraled noodle) with a light tomato sauce. It looks so simple but the pasta was perfect and the sauce had a great light flavor. The ROSÉ young wine ended up being my favorite of the four we tried

The second wine was a young Red Obvius (2012). It also only fermented in a steel container with no sulfates. It was a 100% cengiovasi grapes and spent 4 month in the steel container and 6 month in bottle. This was served half way through testing our pasta to taste the paring difference. It was slightly stronger and less sweet than the rosé but it lacked multiple flavors.

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The third wine was my least favorite. It was a Nobile (2010). It was aged 18 month in an oak barrel (large and small) and then 6 month in the bottle. This also was 100% centrovesi grapes. The wine was very bitter to me. I tasted few flavors in it since it's so bitter. It was at this point the Aperitivo was served. There was bruschetta with chicken patté, pesto, sundried tomato cream cheese spread, or chopped fresh tomatoes. Them hen there were various meats, cheeses, and vegetables. The day was gorgeous and as I enjoyed my food and wine with friends I could see the beautiful city of Montepuciano on the next hill side. Talk about an amazing moment in time.

After about 30 minutes of enjoying the company, food, and views the fourth and final wine was poured. This was a close second of my favorites. The Red Salco (2007) was 100% centrovesi grapes still and was fermented for 4 months in steel, 18 months OMG the large and small barrels and then 6 month bottle. It have so many flavors it was hard to taste. It over whelmed a bit but was fun to try! A plum spread soft shortbread cookie was served as a paired dessert. This cookie was amazing, not very sweet but with a good flavor.

This winery spoiled us and I honestly had a truely memorable time. It wouldn’t have even needed to taste a sip to truly love this place. It’s totally unique, in the most beautiful setting, we had the best weather, and we got to relax and meet more and more people!

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After we finished we headed to Montepuciano. We didn’t spend much time here. We hiked up a steep him to see the square, apparently the italy fountain scene from the second twilight movie was filmed here. Though there is not fountain, they brought it in for the film. It was a cute town! I wish we could’ve had more time but it was fun to see.

We drove back to Florence (2 hours) and then Taylor and I had a bit of time to go back to the hotel room and drop off a few things before heading to our FUA Student Activity Cooking Class. These are hosted by FUA every Thursday for all students enrolled. We signed up on Monday so we could do it. The theme was “dolce” or Desserts. I helped make the almond biscotti cookies while Taylor helped make the “grandmothers cake”. This “cake” was a bottom layer of pasty dough, filled with a vanilla, with a hint of orange juice (fresh) and zest, custard, then covered in another layer of pastry dough. It was fun and complex to make but very delicious. We got to interact with other students and learn from a professional culinary teacher. It was a great end to our already spectacular day.

We had an amazing day! We really saw the unique beauty of Italy. We all joked throughout the day that we were just going to “get lost” and have the bus leave us there. I loved it all so much and I am SOOO not going home after all that!