Cavedoni Botte Piccola Italian Balsamic

[Bob Henrick]

Has anyone on the forum either had, or at least tasted any of the Cavedoni balsamic? Today's Woot of the day is/was a 250ml bottle of the subject vinegar at $34.99 + $5 shipping. It regularly sells for $55-$58 so missing it isn't such a big deal. I am wondering if it is so good that it sold out before noon, and Woot deals are usually for one calendar day. If someone can tell me it really is that good I will consider buying a bottle. This company's most expensive balsamic sells for $850 for a 100ml bottle of 100 year old vinegar, but I 'Ain't" going to get one of those! call me cheap!

http://www.cavedonibalsamic.com/

[Cynthia Wenslow]

call me cheap!

Cheap!

We're not buying any of the 100 year old stuff anytime soon, either.

[Jenise]

Let me ask this, Bob: have you ever had true balsamic vinegar made in the real solera process? If you had, and if you loved it, you'd not be asking, you'd KNOW. The stuff you're paying $5 for at Kroger's is a manufactured facsimile that's nowhere near close.

I keep it around at all times. Don't use it in salad dressings, but use it as a condiment, a drizzle. Most recently, for an ending to an Italian-themed dinner, I served slices of apple tart with an orange peel crust on a plate smeared with apple butter and dotted with a true aged (and expensive, I'll give you that) balsamic vinegar. You almost can't put a price on an experience like that.

[Bob Henrick]

Jenise, you keep a $850 100ml bottle of balsamic around all the time? I must say that I have never tasted the stuff that costs as much as $100 myself. Have tasted some that was probably $50 for a 3oz size bottle, and yes it is good. I didn't know that name on WOOT so I asked, and he who snoozes, loses. It was gone before noon EST today.

[Jenise]

Jenise, you keep a $850 100ml bottle of balsamic around all the time? I must say that I have never tasted the stuff that costs as much as $100 myself. Have tasted some that was probably $50 for a 3oz size bottle, and yes it is good. I didn't know that name on WOOT so I asked, and he who snoozes, loses. It was gone before noon EST today.

No, didn't say I had anything THAT expensive. But authentic, aged, high quality and rather expensive balsamic vinegar? Yeah, got some.

Sorry you missed out.

[Frank Deis]

Jenise, I have some of the real Consorzio certified aceto balsamico as well. I wasn't too cheap to buy it but I seem to be too cheap to use it. Nearly everything I think of feels a little like I'm wasting it. It's such interesting stuff, a drop licked from the back of one's hand, the purest possible way, seems best. I tried a recipe that came in a booklet with the stuff I bought where you mix some with cream cheese and serve with strawberries. It was really good but diluting it that way seemed kind of criminal.

You're smearing apple butter and dotting balsamico on the apple pie, and not on the plate, right??

What else do you like to do with the good stuff?

[Jenise]

You're smearing apple butter and dotting balsamico on the apple pie, and not on the plate, right??

What else do you like to do with the good stuff?

No, on the plate, to bulk out the appearance of the small, rectangular tart slice (baked in a rectangular pan), and so that bites of the tart can be dipped into the condiments. The dark vinegar would look pretty ugly on the crumb crust, and it looks great dotted on the plate--it's about the thickness of paint, so it sits up nicely and doesn't spread. I know what you mean about using it. The most expensive stuff I have was about $150 for a wee bottle, one of those You Only Live Once kind of purchases, and too dear to just pour over strawberries (a flavor I like but use something lesser for). The apple tart was actually just about the only thing I've used the really spendy stuff with besides vanilla ice cream, which is SO. DAMNED. GOOD that it feels positively wasteful to use it anywhere else.

[Frank Deis]

For salad dressing etc. we buy the square bottles from Costco, I don't know if it's Kirkland or something else.

And I went through a phase where I would put a cup or so of that into a saucepan and gently reduce it by half or more until it got syrupy. I think in a way that is what people expect the good stuff to be like, intensely flavored, a bit sweet, and thick textured. I would put that in a squeeze bottle (like for mustard) and do various things with it. Slice tomatoes and put a streak of the reduced balsamic on top. Hmm, having trouble remembering what I did with it, but I went through a lot of it back then.

My good stuff is not quite as thickly textured as paint, it's more liquidy. And both bottles are the squat round bottles designed by the guy who designed the Nikon F1 and some Ferraris -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgetto_Giugiaro -- one came from the Rare Wine Co. in California and the other from -- can't think of the name, a spendy Italian food place in Manhattan. (Dean and DeLuca)

One worthwhile thing I occasionally do with the good stuff is dripping or dunking chunks of really good Parmigiano stravecchio -- the kind that is aged to where there is a sort of fruity taste besides all the cheesiness. Good combination. But honestly it's pretty good on skin. That's how it's tasted if you go to an Acetaia in Modena, as I understand.

[Rahsaan]

I have never bought the very high-end stuff, as it doesn't exactly rank high on my splurge priorities. I have asked for some of the expensive stuff for Christmas or birthdays, but I think it's also beyond the splurge impulses of my family!

There's a store here in Nyc - Fairway - that has pretty good house brand Balsamic for my tastes. About $10 for 375ml and good for dressings and cooking. They claim it has been aged in wood and the texture is much richer and more intense than some of those fake Balsamico-eqsue products one can find out there.

[Lou Kessler]

Bob, only $850.00 a bottle, is there a discount on buying a case?
Never had the pleasure of drinking balsamic that expensive, but Jenise is right the real good stuff is fantastic. I always thought when I become a rock star I would try the good stuff on buttered popcorn. I know everyone is saying don't hold your breath.

[Bob Henrick]

Bob, only $850.00 a bottle, is there a discount on buying a case?
Never had the pleasure of drinking balsamic that expensive, but Jenise is right the real good stuff is fantastic. I always thought when I become a rock star I would try the good stuff on buttered popcorn. I know everyone is saying don't hold your breath.

Lou, I have never had an $850 bottle of wine, much less one of vinegar. I suppose my bottle of 1985 Monte Bello is the most expensive bottle I own. Even, if I am revealing more than I wanted known about me.

[Frank Deis]

Just to clarify, since everyone is getting the wrong idea -- my first bottle of "good" vinegar only cost me about $85 -- the cute little bottles are 100 ml or 3 oz. That was finished only in cherry wood barrels, and has a discernible cherry note, and is best with dessert. The other bottle is one of those 10+ year multiple wood bottles and may have cost about double what the first one cost. That was years ago, and I don't think you can buy what I bought for $85 for less than $100 now. But neither Jenise nor I have paid $850 for a bottle of vinegar, and I doubt if many Americans have either. (Unless the vinegar is purporting to be Lafite that belonged to Thomas Jefferson).

OK, correction, the first Balsamico I bought is available from Rare Wine Co for $79.95 -- Cristo Cherry.

http://www.rarewineco.com/html/list.htm#balsamico

http://www.rarewineco.com/downloads/bal ... samico.pdf

http://www.rarewineco.com/html/bals.htm

[Jenise]

I always thought when I become a rock star I would try the good stuff on buttered popcorn. I know everyone is saying don't hold your breath.

Not me, whose favorite popcorn these days is lathered in white truffle oil.

[wnissen]

I bought a couple bottles of the vinegar in question the last time it was offered, and it was pretty good. Not tradizionale good, but pretty good. Much better than the Fini brand one sees at Williams-Sonoma for $25. It was good enough that I sent a bottle to some friends as an anniversary present and kept one for myself. Quite thick and dark, but not 100% cooked must, still had some vinegar in it.

[Mark Lipton]

Chiming in here a bit late, I realize, but I too have had true, aged Balsamic, courtesy of the largesse of Oliver McCrum at a jeebus in Oakland a few years back. Truly remarkable stuff and totally out of place in a salad dressing.

Mark Lipton