100 year old vinegar

[ponyo]

100 year balsamic vinegar. $1,090 plus tax for 100 ml of aged grape liquid. Is this the holy grail of vinegar?

 

[DigDog]

should cost half as much https://www.emiliauk.london/product/100-years-old-balsamic-vinegar-giusti-copy/

 

[ponyo]

should cost half as much https://www.emiliauk.london/product/100-years-old-balsamic-vinegar-giusti-copy/

Is that site trustworthy and real? That can't be real.

 

[pcgeek11]

I wonder if they will ask for identification before they will sell it to you?

 

[MrSquished]

This is vinegar for dumb rich money. That's all.

 

[DigDog]

i was really just going to bed yesterday so i didn't spend a lot of time here typing out an answer.
I could probably say more about vinegar, but now i gotta go work so i'll have to be brief. You should just read the wikipedia page.

There's a vast range of balsamic vinegars in production. The common stuff is pretty damn good, at least in italy. AFAIK the brand Ponti is very common at retail, like DeCecco for pasta. This stuff is around $7 for a small bottle. This is Aceto Balsamico di Modena - balsamic vinegar from modena. There's a specific set of laws that you gotta abide by to make it.
The high-end stuff is Aceto Balsalico Tradizional di Modena. That one extra word means it's a very different product with again another more restricting set of laws.

While the common "tradizionale" brands sell for about $20 for a small bottle, this is a vinegar that's made with all the precautions of the most high end wines, and like them, it has a very wide price range. $50 for a small bottle is not weird, and it can get as expensive as people are going to pay for it. @ponyo the Giusti's own website puts that same bottle at EUR 530.
Frankly i've never heard of Giusti and if i had to invest into a high-end bottle of Tradizionale, it wouldn't be that one. And also i wouldn't go above $50 - diminishing returns.

Also, cheap versions of this exist as well. They are called Aceto Balsamico and you can buy a medium bottle at any supermarket for $5. It has none of the complexity of a proper balsamic vinegar, but again, "who cares?"

You can buy a pretty decent bottle of Chianti from Lidl for £4 and yeah, it's drinkable. It's not fantastic and i sure would prefer to have a $30 bottle of brunello di montalcino fattoria Barbi, but consider that:

1. you can't drink $30 wine every day
2. $30 is nothing when you talk about expensive wine. There's NEW bottles of wine (not aged stuff) that sell for $150 and we're barely breaching "expensive" here. https://www.armitwines.co.uk/wine/2018-sassicaia/10573

If i have to spend this kinda money, i would drop it on a Rare Malts bottling of some good Islay. Sadly stuff like Port Ellen is completely out of reach these days, having gone the way oif the Bitcoin, a $40 bottle is worth over two grand now.

Anyway, to sum up.

If i can get some Ponti Aceto Balsamico di Modena - i'll buy that.
If i can't, the shitty Sainsbury's Aceto Balsamico is fine.
If i'm buying a present, $50 is the limit for a bottle of Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (or "di Reggio Emilia")
anything above that and you're being either stupid or spoiled rich.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

i was really just going to bed yesterday so i didn't spend a lot of time here typing out an answer.
I could probably say more about vinegar, but now i gotta go work so i'll have to be brief. You should just read the wikipedia page.

There's a vast range of balsamic vinegars in production. The common stuff is pretty damn good, at least in italy. AFAIK the brand Ponti is very common at retail, like DeCecco for pasta. This stuff is around $7 for a small bottle. This is Aceto Balsamico di Modena - balsamic vinegar from modena. There's a specific set of laws that you gotta abide by to make it.
The high-end stuff is Aceto Balsalico Tradizional di Modena. That one extra word means it's a very different product with again another more restricting set of laws.

While the common "tradizionale" brands sell for about $20 for a small bottle, this is a vinegar that's made with all the precautions of the most high end wines, and like them, it has a very wide price range. $50 for a small bottle is not weird, and it can get as expensive as people are going to pay for it. @ponyo the Giusti's own website buts that same bottle at EUR 530.
Frankly i've never heard of Giusti and if i had to invest into a high-end bottle of Tradizionale, it wouldn't be that one. And also i wouldn't go above $50 - diminishing returns.

Also, cheap versions of this exist as well. They are called Aceto Balsamico and you can buy a medium bottle at any supermarket for $5. It has none of the complexity of a proper balsamic vinegar, but again, "who cares?"

You can buy a pretty decent bottle of Chianti from Lidl for £4 and yeah, it's drinkable. It's not fantastic and i sure would prefer to have a $30 bottle of brunello di montalcino fattoria Barbi, but consider that:

1. you can't drink $30 wine every day
2. $30 is nothing when you talk about expensive wine. There's NEW bottles of wine (not aged stuff) that sell for $150 and we're barely breaching "expensive" here. https://www.armitwines.co.uk/wine/2018-sassicaia/10573

If i have to spend this kinda money, i would drop it on a Rare Malts bottling of some good Islay. Sadly stuff like Port Ellen is completely out of reach these days, having gone the way oif the Bitcoin, a $40 bottle is worth over two grand now.

Anyway, to sum up.

If i can get some Ponti Aceto Balsamico di Modena - i'll buy that.
If i can't, the shitty Sainsbury's Aceto Balsamico is fine.
If i'm buying a present, $50 is the limit for a bottle of Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (or "di Reggio Emilia")
anything above that and you're being either stupid or spoiled rich.

I agree with this post. I'll also say that a $150 bottle of Brunello is the bottle that 'did it' for me, and changed how I viewed expensive ingredients/foods vs inexpensive ones. There's a reason certain things cost a lot of money, and aside from diminishing returns, there can be a lot of really amazing experiences that can be had.

 

[DigDog]

well, try to keep an open mind on this next one.

To me, a high end bottle of wine is like drugs.

I got no problem spending $100 on a gram of cocaine, but it's not something that i would do every day. It's the occasional thing, once or twice a year. My idea of being in a "drug-fuelled craze" is doing it ten times a year. And - while this is the subject of discussion - i find the idea of people pointing fingers and shouting "immoral" or "drug user" to be stupid, it's just drugs, our species has been doing them since we were literally another species, getting high is normal.

So if me and a bunch of guys go to a wine bar and slosh out a hundred bucks apiece to ONE TIME get some crazy amazing wine, that is made from hand picked grapes from a selected vineyard's selected section, aged 12 years in imported barrels of a specific type, under specific atmospheric conditions, to make a ridiculously good wine through a ridiculously complicated process, THAT'S FINE. I accept that a bottle of a 120-proof whisky that's been aged for 23 years and comes from a now-defunct distillery, costs more than a bottle from the supermarket.

You don't do that every day. You don't buy the expensive Brunello every day. You don't even buy the top shelf supermarket every day.

What you want is a good daily product. Something whose quality is "good" but affordable enough to be a common-use ingredient in your kitchen. And, you know, if your name is Jamie Oliver and you use a $40 bottle of wine to make your bolognese sauce, you're an idiot. It doesn't need it, and you are wasting good wine.

Unfortunately, there is a huge market for wine that's overpriced without any reason to be so. I fucking cringe when i go to Sainsbury's supermarket (chain) and see bottles of wine for £30, a mediocre Chateauneuf du Pape that should cost about £10.
If you live in the US, you are getting robbed. The prices of wine are all over the place, some pretty good, some f* insane.


And, this idea of a good daily product applies as well to vinegar. Yeah i *like* a $150 bottle of vinegar, but i want something i can use every day, not something that i have to take a loan out if i spill too much in my salad.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not massively keen on the super expensive balsamic vinegar. There's a limited amount of things you can do with it. Its not really a vinegar, it's more of a slightly acidic treacle.

Last time I used the good stuff was in Milan just as the pandemic was starting to kick off in Italy. I bought a tray of strawberries and dressed them with it for the wife. It was really good in that context but I use the cheap "fake" stuff a lot more often.

 

[kage69]

Looks like we need some Kotokas for dipping guys

 

[ponyo]

@DigDog ,

Good stuff man. Now, this is why I'm still here on ATOT. I learned lot from your post. My family and I are noobs when it comes to balsamic vinegar and just getting into this stuff. We've been eating lot of cheese boards, salads, pasta, and bread and discovered the wonderful world of quality balsamic vinegar. My wife loves the stuff. So if she likes it, money is not really big concern for me. I want her to be happy. Life is about experiences. I don't mind splurging for the best.

We just finished bottle of Giusti 3 gold. I paid $40 on Amazon for 250 ml bottle and supposedly it's aged 12 years. We enjoyed it so much I ordered their 5 gold version which is 25 years aged bottle for $98 yesterday on Amazon. I was going to try this one before trying the more expensive $200+ ones. I was thinking about ordering the 100 year, 100 ml, $1,000 later. Which is why I made this post.

I just checked the 100 year old one on Giusti website and it shows $990 USD with $19 for shipping. So $1,009 shipped which is still about $100 cheaper than ordering from Amazon. I guess the $100 higher price is to cover the fees Amazon charging for selling on their platform.

I have $10 Kirkland balsamic vinegar I use for everyday cooking. It's huge 1 liter bottle. It's great as well but there's huge difference in taste between the cheaper Kirkland to the Giusti 3 gold. Now I want to try Ponti Aceto Balsamico di Modena and see how it compares to the Kirkland balsamic and Giusti ones as well.

 

[kage69]

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not massively keen on the super expensive balsamic vinegar. There's a limited amount of things you can do with it. Its not really a vinegar, it's more of a slightly acidic treacle.

Last time I used the good stuff was in Milan just as the pandemic was starting to kick off in Italy. I bought a tray of strawberries and dressed them with it for the wife. It was really good in that context but I use the cheap "fake" stuff a lot more often.

Translation for Americans: think clear molasses

 

[WelshBloke]

Looks like we need some Kotokas for dipping guys

What is going on here? Why are the strawberries in little jumpers?

 

[kage69]

What is going on here? Why are the strawberries in little jumpers?

Japanese opulence, that's what's up

You should see their melons and mangos.

 

[ponyo]

Looks like we need some Kotokas for dipping guys

I would fly to Japan to eat strawberries. It's that good. The best strawberries in the world are the Japanese ones. Close second are Korean strawberries. Nothing is close. If you never had Japanese or Korean strawberries, you wouldn't understand. It's like night and day difference in sweetness and taste of Japanese/Korean strawberries to strawberries elsewhere. It's like difference between eating wagyu beef and old Mexican dairy cow beef.

 

[WelshBloke]

Japanese opulence, that's what's up

You should see their melons and mangos.

Theres a farm near me that grows strawberries (and other soft fruit) out in the sun. When they are ripe (in better years) I take the kids, a bowl, some water and some fresh cream, and we pick a bunch of fresh fruit, sit in a field, wash them and eat them still warm from the sun with cream on top.

I would be really surprised if those posh strawberries taste as good as my cheap farm ones!

 

[sdifox]

What is going on here? Why are the strawberries in little jumpers?

So they don't bruise. 22 dollars each, Not like the Bijin-Hime at 4400 each.

 

[ponyo]

Theres a farm near me that grows strawberries (and other soft fruit) out in the sun. When they are ripe (in better years) I take the kids, a bowl, some water and some fresh cream, and we pick a bunch of fresh fruit, sit in a field, wash them and eat them still warm from the sun with cream on top.

I would be really surprised if those posh strawberries taste as good as my cheap farm ones!

I guarantee you the Japanese ones are noticeably superior to any farm strawberries you find in Europe. 100% guarantee it's no contest. This is why people need to travel.

You can get 95% of the taste of Japanese strawberries with the Korean ones. Korean ones are cheap and still so good.

 

[WelshBloke]

I guarantee you the Japanese ones are noticeably superior to any farm strawberries you find in Europe.

Why? They are the same fruit. Obviously you can get terrible strawberries picked before they are ripe and shipped to supermarkets and kept cold so they last on the shelf. Those are terrible, sad things that taste of nothing.
But good fruit picked at the moment its perfectly ripe then eaten immediately with minimal handling and fannying around with is going to be great when it's grown in the climate that it was made for.

 

[Paratus]

Probably have to have a drivers license to buy that vinegar.....

 

[kage69]

I would fly to Japan to eat strawberries. It's that good. The best strawberries in the world are the Japanese ones. Close second are Korean strawberries. Nothing is close. If you never had Japanese or Korean strawberries, you wouldn't understand. It's like night and day difference in sweetness and taste of Japanese/Korean strawberries to strawberries elsewhere. It's like difference between eating wagyu beef and old Mexican dairy cow beef.

Same, if mangoes were also there. Japanese mangoes (cultivars from Australia mostly IIRC) are fucking incredible. Full on 'party in yo mouf, everyone invited.' They get the same loving treatment as melons and pears. So juicy you ruin your shirt. So tasty it makes you mad over the fruit you've been eating.

I really want to try those white strawberries, the ones that taste like pineapple.

 

[Red Squirrel]

100 years old but I bet it was made less than a month ago in a factory in Shenzen lol.

 

[ponyo]

Why? They are the same fruit. Obviously you can get terrible strawberries picked before they are ripe and shipped to supermarkets and kept cold so they last on the shelf. Those are terrible, sad things that taste of nothing.
But good fruit picked at the moment its perfectly ripe then eaten immediately with minimal handling and fannying around with is going to be great when it's grown in the climate that it was made for.

It's different. While the Japanese strawberries originated from Dutch strawberries strain, it's been finely cultivated and new stains developed by the Japanese which they have the patent. So it's different. Koreans strawberries are the strains taken from Japan. Supposedly, Koreans tweaked the strain to be slightly different so they wouldn't have to pay royalty to Japan. I think there was lawsuit with Japan demanding royalty payment from Korea. I don't know if that's resolved or not. I don't care. Korean strawberries are so good and perfectly good cheap substitute for the more expensive Japanese strawberries.

 

[kage69]

Why? They are the same fruit. Obviously you can get terrible strawberries picked before they are ripe and shipped to supermarkets and kept cold so they last on the shelf. Those are terrible, sad things that taste of nothing.
But good fruit picked at the moment its perfectly ripe then eaten immediately with minimal handling and fannying around with is going to be great when it's grown in the climate that it was made for.

False.

Often they are growing cultivars very different than what is grown in Europe or the States. The technqiues and conditions used to grow are also very different, with different market priorities. It all comes out to equal super high end fruit tech that doesn't share our Western emphasis on quantity over quality, size and appearance over taste.

 

[ponyo]

US strawberries are terrible. You can go to the farm and pick the most ripe and perfect strawberries yourself and it will still be meh tasting strawberries compared to what's available in Japan and Korea. I still eat USA strawberries every week but I know I'm eating really subpar strawberries. Because I had the best from Japan and Korea. Sometimes I wish I didn't know better and didn't know about strawberries from Japan. There's some truth to the saying, "ignorance is bliss."