The BBC article especially is conflating two kinds of 'fake'. The balsamic vinegar most of us buy is not the super expensive 'Traditional balsamic vinegar', wh

The 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.