Of all the incredibly interesting and delicious things we did and tasted on our Food and Wine Adventure to Italy in November, visiting Acetaia Gambigliani Zoccoli was one of the best. I mean, we did a ton of cool stuff on this trip. We went truffle hunting and tasting, followed up with a plate of fresh tagliarini pasta, tossed with butter, parm and endless shaved white truffles, eaten outdoors overlooking the hills and vineyards of Alba. We visited Barolo and Chianti, with lunch (and a cooking class!) paired with wine tastings, took a tour of a Parmigiano Reggiano-making plant, with yes, a tasting, did a gianduja-making (Piedmontese hazelnut-chocolate confection and the original Nutella) and tasting class in Torino, had another pasta-making class and dinner in Bologna, and one more wine tasting in Tuscany…and so much more, plus tastings, in our nine days exploring Piedmont and Tuscany. Fantastico! The best trip so far, but there are many more on the horizon so if you’re having FOMO, it’s never too late.
I made videos and posted stories all along the way, so hopefully you caught a few of those. All great stuff, but visiting the acetaia, was especially amazing, because the family who own and run Acetaia Gambigliani Zoccoli are like your Italian fantasy dream family. Like if say, the stars and your DNA lined up just right and you’d been born into a seven-generation-old vinegar-making dynasty, ensconced in a massive ancestral villa in Modena, been one of several stunningly attractive siblings, and child to the nicest old Pappa at the helm, instead of say…my family, then you’d see what I’m talking about. Now that statement does not include my entire family, especially not my sister, or several select cousins and one step-aunt, but if you know me and know about my family, well, let’s just leave it at that. We are not a seven-generation dynasty of anything except chronically short people with good hair. And while I own a very nice loft in Brooklyn (and tiny bungalow!) which I will bequeath to my niece when the time comes, and my sister and are pretty cute, we’re no Gambigliani Zoccolis, sad to say.
It’s ok, not everyone can be a heir to a vinegar-making empire… And sometimes, you just have to make your own damn empire. Which is what I’m doing, with my trips, Instagram and TikTok presence, here on Substack, and of course, my new YouTube channel, which I hope you’ve all subscribed to (don’t worry, it’s free) and hopefully, someday soon, a book deal! (we’re working on it, so please say a little book-deal-getting prayer for me (non-denominational is fine, just address it to the publishing gods, please). So here I sit, typing away, building my own empire in my sweats, not having been lucky enough to be born a Modenese vinegar heiress, but lucky in many other ways, and I’ve come to terms with that.
I learned so much about food and Italian history and food culture on this one, and I thought I knew a lot already. It’s always fun, and humbling to be taught new things about a subject that you thought you had a pretty good grasp on. I may be an old dog, but I’m receptive, and new tricks keep me on my toes and flex my brain capacity. Bring ‘em on, throw me that chew toy!
One thing I was really surprised by, in our visit to the Acetaia, was how much volume is lost to the aging process in the making of the vinegar. As I show in the video, the barrels get progressively smaller as the vinegar ages and reduces into the thick, velvety syrup that is true aceto balsamico. Like, it loses 75% of its original volume, over twenty-five years. Just like me, I’m losing volume (height) with age too. I lost 2 centimeters to my back surgery, and I just had a DEXA bone scan and the future news for me, heightwise isn’t good. If you’re looking for me, I’m down here. And unlike balsamico, I don’t get more valuable with age, just more expensive to insure and to maintain the physical plant. I know I have a big personality, and on camera appear taller, but it’s all an illusion. I’m small and getting smaller. Pocket chef!
That’s quite the long-term investment, twelve or twenty-five years. Like if I said tomorrow, “I think I want to start an aged balsamic company” (which I can’t because I have low-born dud DNA) I’d get my first batch going, and then have to wait until 2050 to bottle and sell it! Not practical, as I just turned 57 last week (thanks for all the birthday cards! not really) and I’d be 82 and by then who even knows what kind of hell we’ll be living in? I guess I could go for the twelve-year old plan, and bottle at 69, which might make more sense. But who can wait twelve or twenty-five years? Not this peasant from Brooklyn. I can barely wait for my tea to steep.
They sell a twelve and a twenty-five year old bottle, and we tasted both, very generously. There was a bottle of each at our place settings at lunch and we were free to taste and sip and slurp and drizzle on everything we ate. Except salad. This is not vinegar for salad. They made that very clear. Too special for salad. Drizzle on aged cheese, over risotto, on cake, vanilla ice cream, but NOT ON SALAD. And that was totally manageable because in nine days in Italy we ate NO SALAD, at all. Not really at all, a few here and there, but whoo boy, northern Italy man. Meat, cheese, pasta, repeat. The markets are full of gorgeous lush produce, piles of greens, radicchio to make you cry, artichokes like giant purple roses, but who’s eating them? Italians. At home. Not in restaurants. Not for you, tourist. Meat, cheese, pasta, repeat. Plus wine.
This was just the first course…soon to be slathered with aged vinegar.
And, as if this day could not have been any better, at the end of the meal the super-handsome and charming Patriarch Pappa beckoned me over to him, and said he had a little gift for me. I got very excited and asked him if it was one of his handsome sons, and that any one of them would do, and that Adam would totally understand, but no, instead of a son, he handed me their special wooden gift box with a bottle of each vintage of vinegar. I almost cried. Not because I was really hoping for a vinegar heir, but because that sh*t goes for $100 and it was such a generous gift. I was really touched by the generosity. It’s now sitting here on my counter, quietly aging even more, as I meant to open it for Thanksgiving and drizzle it on cheese, turkey, cake, anything, but NOT SALAD but never got around to it, believe it or not. Actually I think I’m afraid to open it, because then I’ll have to use it up, and that’ll be the end of it, and the fantasy of being a stunning, Italian vinegar heiress will evaporate into the vapors of time, like my two centimeters of spine and my formerly firm face.
And speaking of age, and my sister, who is older than me by three years and is also shrinking, she is a therapist and is offering an online Peri-Menopause and Menopause support group for people going through it. I’m only mentioning it here because we were talking about aging, which cannot be stopped, obvs, but getting through peri and meno can at least be managed, and my sister is like a smarter, nicer version of me, so why not spend an evening each week with her, virtually, for six weeks this winter? I’d do it, but it would be weird to have my sister be my therapist. Like, how could I bring up sibling issues with her? She’d know in a second who I was talking about, because like I said, she’s smarter than me.
Buona sera amici, see you later in the week. Baci! xxx
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