(Luciana Squadrilli - February 202)
The weekly publication for gourmets, Gambero Rosso, dedicated a few pages to vinegars, principally wine vinegars (more appropriately, crude vinegars) and what really goes on with our Acid Friends: Andrea Bezzecchi has for some time produced his craft version, starting out from wines or fermentations of high quality such as Walter Massa’s Timorasso or other products from the surrounding area: the product is left to oxidize and mature slowly in barrels without enforced temperature changes and with no oxygen added in the first 6 months. The product is neither filtered nor pasteurized, but simply laid in wooden casks made of oak, juniper or cherry or alternatively in amphoras (traditional storage jars) to improve with age; as such a resounding “no” has been delivered to the mother of vinegar and its false legend of craftsmanship and rurality: other non-Traditionally made vinegars are simply a second-class product. They are the result of vinegar oxidization which only produces problems, as it impedes correct oxidization and can cause the product to produce badly-smelling compounds.This is to flag up the complexity of a product that is often trivialized by consumers (but also by some producers), for the time
being rather unaware of the subtleties of this universe.