Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

Balsamic joy

Posted on 21 April 2010

 
Not a wine today, though a wine-derived product. We all know Italian balsamic vinegar and appreciate the real thing, aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena, surely one of this planet’s most glorious man-made things. Although the principle of producing balsamic vinegar is simple – just boil grape must over fire, and then wait thirty years – it’s proven notoriously difficult to successfully emulate elsewhere. I’ve tasted balsamicos made by very good vintners in France, Spain, Germany and Australia and although really good, they were a far cry from the original Modena stuff.

Well, today’s balsamic vinegar comes quite close. It’s made in Tokaj, Hungary, by one of the leading producers of the region’s sweet wines: Dobogó (mentioned twice in my blog already: here and here). It’s vintage-dated (I’m tasting the 2005 here), and it’s made with must from aszú wine – yes, the incredibly sweet noble-rot affected ‘wine of kings, king of wines’. Even the bacteria that slowly ferment the wine into vinegar are selected from the skins of the estate’s Furmint grapes. Aged a year in Hungarian and Italian oak – and so very much shorter than a good Emilian balsamico – it’s one of the most concentrated vinegars I’ve tasted. While it doesn’t quite match the ageless viscosity of Modenian vinegar, it is very thick, with a wonderfully complex flavour ranging from fresh grapes through molasses to tertiary notes of caramel, dried figs and Marmite. Just a bit less sweet than Modena, the tang of this Tokaj vinegar is a bit more obvious (6%), making this a very good accompaniment with savoury foods. And it’s really inexpensive – 10 € for the 250 ml you see on the photos – though I don’t think it’s exported. 

 
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