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No, actually, you should have kept reading. The fakes they're talking about are actual fakes - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/09/grapes-of-wrath-ita
by 0x457 2y ago
No, actually, you should have kept reading. The fakes they're talking about are actual fakes - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/09/grapes-of-wrath-italian-police-target-fake-balsamic-vinegar https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/09/grapes-of-wrat...
- takluyver 2y agoThe BBC article especially is conflating two kinds of 'fake'. The balsamic vinegar most of us buy is not the super expensive 'Traditional balsamic vinegar', which is what they're describing aging in barrels for 12 years. It may still be 'balsamic vinegar of Modena', which is a protected term but with much less strict requirements, and consequently much cheaper. And 'balsamic vinegar' without qualifiers is not protected at all, as far as I know. It seems like a stretch to call these fakes. Either protected term can fetch a better price than generic 'balsamic vinegar', so someone will have a go at faking some paperwork to make their product more valuable. The Guardian article describes one such case that was caught (in 2019), but doesn't say much about how prevalent this is.
- chrisjj 2y agoYes, actually. I read the article and nowhere does it call the cheaper non-trad variety fake.
- 0x457 2y agoWell, read it again? It's about non-trad variety vinegar being sold as traditional variety. Which is very different from non-trad being sold as non-trad.