Night in Modena

Same Modenese house as Luce — Acetaia Sereni, founded by Santina, expanded by Attilio, commercialised by Pier Luigi from 1982, today in the hands of the fourth generation across twenty-five hectares of AltaModena® hills, with fifteen hundred barrels of oak, chestnut, juniper, acacia, ash, mulberry and cherry. Notte di Modena is the classic dark Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI from the house, but the discipline is well above the floor: where the PGI asks for only a small fraction of cooked must and a couple of months of ageing, Sereni works at much higher cooked-must ratios and ages each batch at least a full year, with reserve bottlings held five and eight years, refining in oak and cherry. Trebbiano and Lambrusco Grasparossa grapes are crushed and the must is cooked over open fire; the cooked must then ferments, evaporates and stabilises in the attic batterie, where the wide swing of seasonal heat and cold drives the slow transformation. No caramel, no shortcut — natural acetification, time as the principal ingredient.