In the cellar of a country home in Emilia-Romagna worn barrels had been tucked away in neat rows of twos and threes. With every shake of the house - and on this particular evening there were many – dust rained from the timber ceiling and peppered the barrel lids, gathering in mounds as deep as half an inch. One barrel, unmarred by dust and boasting the vibrant sheen of newly cleaned wood, was at the very tip of this gathering, recently filled with would-be balsamic grape must and slotted in beside its older brothers and sisters. This family of casks had gained another member as of that day, to mark the welcoming of baby boy Aldo into the Poli family who were celebrating upstairs in an evening of rich foods and gregarious wines. Each barrel in this cellar had marked a similar special occasion, the result of a North Italian tradition honoured by Giuseppe Poli, the family’s patriarch endearingly nicknamed the Old Oak, whose sentimentality was the foundation of Acetaia Castelli.
The story of Acetaia Castelli, their premium Balsamic Vinegar, and the Old Oak’s legacy is aptly reminiscent of a Greek proverb: ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.’ This local tradition of filling a new barrel of Balsamic has allowed the Poli descendants to sit and practice their craft in the sweet acidic shade of their familial history. The process of making balsamic mirrors this sense of timelessness and the fluidity, pardon the pun, of the past and present. After boiling down harvested grapes the congealed grape must is left to ferment in oak barrels for years, a timely process that inherits the characteristics of the wood and indeed the seasons that dictate how the liquid expands and contracts. Balsamic’s absorption of time, however, goes beyond the borrowing of the barrel. A little-known quirk of balsamic is that a barrel is never fully emptied before being refilled again by the next youngest barrel. There is a Latin phrase used to describe this process: In Pepertuum, translating as Forever. Each barrel, before welcoming its younger sibling, gets to retain the delectable remnants of the old to mix and influence the new, perpetually, giving each eventual bottle the taste of every generation that had a hand in filling it.
Perpetuity as a virtue is a strange concept but Acetaia Castelli welcomes the practice of patience, in slow thinking and slow acting, eschewing the contemporary compulsions to rush. The barrels Acetaia blend now will be bottled by the next generation to come, a craft that is the simultaneous curation of the now, and the then, and the later, in pepertuum.
The story of Acetaia Castelli, their premium Balsamic Vinegar, and the Old Oak’s legacy is aptly reminiscent of a Greek proverb: ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.’ This local tradition of filling a new barrel of Balsamic has allowed the Poli descendants to sit and practice their craft in the sweet acidic shade of their familial history. The process of making balsamic mirrors this sense of timelessness and the fluidity, pardon the pun, of the past and present. After boiling down harvested grapes the congealed grape must is left to ferment in oak barrels for years, a timely process that inherits the characteristics of the wood and indeed the seasons that dictate how the liquid expands and contracts. Balsamic’s absorption of time, however, goes beyond the borrowing of the barrel. A little-known quirk of balsamic is that a barrel is never fully emptied before being refilled again by the next youngest barrel. There is a Latin phrase used to describe this process: In Pepertuum, translating as Forever. Each barrel, before welcoming its younger sibling, gets to retain the delectable remnants of the old to mix and influence the new, perpetually, giving each eventual bottle the taste of every generation that had a hand in filling it.
Perpetuity as a virtue is a strange concept but Acetaia Castelli welcomes the practice of patience, in slow thinking and slow acting, eschewing the contemporary compulsions to rush. The barrels Acetaia blend now will be bottled by the next generation to come, a craft that is the simultaneous curation of the now, and the then, and the later, in pepertuum.
