The balsamic vinegar is rooted in Roman times. Romans used the sauce coming from the reduction of boiled grape "must" (grape juice) as sweetener as well as honey (sugar will arrive in Italy in the Renaissance). The very first document which speaks explicitly of balsamic dates to 1046, when the Duke of Franconia, Henry III, on the way to Rome to be crowned Emperor, asked Boniface III of Canossa of this very special vinegar, and Bonifacio gifted him with it in a silver casket! The balsamic was then very popular in the Renaissance along the Este family in Ferrara. Obizzo II, lord of Modena, was used to retain many barrels of balsamic vinegar, jealously guarded in the attics and often used as payment or thanksgiving to aristocrats and kings in Europe. It is clear that the Aceto Balsamico, the balsamic vinegar, was a very important product for the tables of the wealthy families, spreading all over Europe from the Duchies of Modena and Reggio. In 1764 the Modena vinegar reaches Mothe Russia, as a gift for the Empress Catherine the Great. Twenty years later, the Duke Ercole III sent a bottle of vinegar in Frankfurt, as a gift for the coronation of Francis II of Austria. The first use of the "balsamic" word for this special and "royal" vinegar dates XVIII Century. The term balsamic probably refers to the quality of the scented woods of the barrels: acacia, cherry, oak, chestnut, mulberry, juniper... Different barrels and differently sized barrels give the vinegar a special, peculiar flavour. It is a document dated 1862 from Francesco Aggazzotti to his friend Pio Fabriani, a solicitor, that staes the production of the balsamic vinegar: it is an absolutely important document as it is the core of the production rules for the Modena DOP balsamic vinegar (the Aceto Balsamico di Modena). Stay tuned to know more about the DOP and IGP vinegars and the difference between Modena and Reggio Emilia aceti!