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Giuseppe Giusti started making balsamic vinegar four centuries ago. Not much has changed since 1605, except the fact that Mr. Giusti is no longer personally presiding over every batch. Outside of Modena, you will find the Giuseppe Giusti vinegar house and museum, which is a testament to the art of balsamic vinegar. Visitors can take a guided tour and sample their magical varieties in the beautiful on-site shop.
The company’s Acetaia, as it’s called, is the attic of the house where the vinegars are made and stored. As a visitor, you can view how each batch is made from grape must and transferred, over time, from barrel to barrel. The barrels are all stained black from the aging vinegar and covered in lace – leaving an opening for periodic tasting. As the centuries have past, each barrel has been added to with more and more layers of wood to keep the original fragments in tact to enrich flavor and quality. To this day, you can taste and purchase balsamic vinegar which has traces of the very first batch ever made in the barrels.
Each collection of vinegar from Giuseppe Giusti has been awarded medals of silver, bronze and gold – and earned a reputation worldwide for their exceptional quality. My personal favorites are the fig infused balsamic and the Reserve 100. This experience is quintessentially Modena and quintessentially Emilia-Romagna. It can’t be missed.
