Best food day ever: Touring a Parmigiano Reggiano factory and a balsamic vinegar producer!

After our time spent at an agriturismo in Piozzano, we were about to head to Florence (spoiler: Florence ended up being my favorite city in Italy). But, on the way we decided to really make sure we got the most out of our time in the foodie Emilia Romagna region by stopping to tour a Parmigiano Reggiano factory and a balsamic vinegar producer. And they were both so awesome!

Parmigiano Reggiano tour

Parmigiano Reggiano is basically yummy goodness in solid form. I will admit, I didn’t understand the nuances of the difference between Parmigiano Reggiano and “parmesan cheese” as well before this tour, but now I really do (and, I understand why the real stuff is so expensive!).

You can do a tour of a Parmigiano Reggiano factory for free, you just have to contact the consortium to do it (consortium website, better to call than to email when setting up a tour). They’ll set you up with a factory and a time, and it’s generally better to go early in the morning (i.e., 8am aka still nighttime for me) to see all the parts of the process. The consortium is similar to the one for Chianti Classico, in that they provide standards and legitimacy to the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, helping the producers maintain quality and value of their products.

There’s a lot of rules and regulations that a cheese factory must follow to make true Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, down to every detail about the cows, the milk, the storage, the production, etc. I won’t get into all of those here (not that I know them all!), but the process we saw does follow them all. Ok, ok, enough about that, let’s get to the cheese!! Here’s how Parmigiano Reggiano cheese is made.

Step 1: Getting the milk

The cows that are used for Parmigiano Reggiano are strictly monitored and regulated. They must be kept and raised in the Parma region and are fed a diet mainly consisting of alfalfa. It was very strange when we drove through Parma, as we didn’t see any cows at all. Turns out they are all kept inside so everything they eat (and every time they are milked) can be monitored using RFID tags and apps. Cool technology for sure, but wouldn’t it be nice if the cows could be free?

The cheese factory gets milk twice a day from the dairy farms. The milk that arrives at night is put into the pans below overnight. In the morning the fat is skimmed off and taken away to make butter. The remaining skim milk is combined the fresh morning milk that has come in from the dairy farm, making Parmigiano Reggiano a part-skim cheese.

Step 2: Heating and adding the rennet

Then the milk is put into large vats, heated and stirred. Rennet (a compound that induces the curdling of milk into cheese) is added to each of the vats and the milk is then stirred for about 60-90 minutes. This begins the process of turning the milk into cheese. True Parmigiano Reggiano cheese only has three ingredients – milk, rennet and salt (which comes later).

We learned that there is a master cheesemaker who is in charge of the whole factory. It’s a role and expertise that is passed down from generation to generation, and the cheesemaker uses his experience to decide when to move onto step 3 of the process.

Step 3: Separating the cheese from the whey

This is a step that requires a lot of strength! Since the milk has started to curdle, the cheesemakers pull up a cheese cloth from the bottom of each vat, separating the cheese (solid-ish) from the remaining liquid (whey, which is used to feed pigs). Each vat gives 100kg (yes! a 100 kg) of pre- cheese solids. The solid that is pulled up from each vat is separated into two halves, and each of these halves will become a full wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

(By the way, the guy in the see-through hat in the below picture is the cheesemaster of this factory).

Step 4: 24 hours of chilling

The solid is put into a wheel mold, with a plastic insert lining the inside of it; this plastic insert imprints the cheese factory’s identifier as well as the month and year when the cheese was made. The cheese sits in this mold for about a day to cool and to start the hardening and aging process.

(Another by the way, the lady in the picture below was our tour guide. She is part of the consortium and was born in raised in Parma. She was just so Italian and so hilarious).

Step 5: 3-4 weeks of brining

Then the cheese wheels are placed into a saltwater brine for about 3-4 weeks. This continues the aging process, allows for the cheese to absorb the salt (yummy!) and hardens the outside of the wheel into a rind.

You also can see a code on the wheel of cheese below. Literally every wheel that is made can be tracked back to which batch of milk it used and what dairy farm and cows that milk came from. In case there are any issues with contamination, quality or production it is critical that the factory have this to stop any further issues.

Step 6: 12 months (minimum) of aging

This is where the magic really happens. The cheese wheels are moved into a storage room to age for a minimum of 12 months. It really is amazing and awe inspiring to be in this temperature-controlled room with just hundreds and hundreds (actually, probably thousands) of wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano surrounding you. (And, if you’ve forgotten, that’s Merritt below, Damian’s friend from gymnastics, who joined us for this leg of our trip!)

Step 7: Stamp of approval

After 12 months of aging (at minimum) the consortium comes in to inspect the cheese. They use a hammer to hit the side of the rind and, based on the sound the wheel makes, the cheese is approved or not. The best wheels of cheese get an official stamp, and can now officially be called Parmigiano Reggiano cheese!

There are times where the cheese wheel isn’t absolutely perfect, but still is quite good enough to eat. In that case the consortium marks the outside of the wheel with horizontal lines (like seen below). It isn’t officially Parmigiano Reggiano cheese but is more like a “table cheese” in Italy. Good to know when shopping for it!

Step 8: Eating!

And then comes the eating, woohoo! Typically Parmigiano Reggiano cheese is sold after having been aged 12, 24, or 36 months (though there was one wheel at the factory that was over 15 years old – that one is worth lots of $$ and I’m not sure if it will ever be sold). We tried all three ages of cheese and Damian and I actually both liked the 24 month version the best! The salt crystals and proteins pop in your mouth and it is some serious deliciousness. Even though there were more tours coming in after us we may have done some serious damage to these cheese boards.

We had a great time on this tour and really would recommend it to anyone. It’s so awesome that the consortium does this, to promote the product and factories, and to help people like us understand the value of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Our tour guide was super knowledgeable and we came away having learned so much! What a great morning.

Visiting Parma, the town

After our tour of the Parmigiano Reggiano factory we had a few hours to kill before our balsamic vinegar tour. So, we decided to hit the town of Parma! It was another cute little Italian city and we enjoyed walking around, exploring the market, eating pastries and getting gelato! (And laughing at Damian doing this strange jump. What a strange man.)

Balsamic vinegar tour

And then finally, in the afternoon, we arrived to our tour of the balsamic vinegar producer (don’t worry, this recap won’t be as long as the Parmigiano Reggiano one above). Similar to the other regional foods, there is a consortium that regulates the production of balsamic vinegar and they set up the tour for us. If you want to set up a tour just contact the consortium via email (info@balsamico.it) and they will hook you up!

What is balsamic vinegar?

I never fully realized this before, but there is a reason that the price of balsamic vinegar varies so much at the grocery store, and it’s not just branding (for those of you who already knew this, don’t judge). The thin, liquid-y stuff you usually get and use for dressing mixes, etc. is not the traditional balsamic vinegar from the Modena region. The traditional balsamic vinegar is way thicker and sweeter (and better, in my opinion), and also way more expensive. I’ll be focusing on the latter in this recap!

How is traditional balsamic vinegar made?

Traditional balsamic vinegar is made from unfermented grapes, which is why so many wine producers also make balsamic. In the Modena region of Italy, to make the truest product, there is a regulation of what grapes must be used (Trebbiano and Lambrusco), as well as lots of other small things that I am not going to detail here.

The process to make it is very simple – the grapes are harvested and then pressed down to become a pulp. Then, the resulting “grape must” is filtered and cooked for about 24 hours. Immediately after this the grape “stuff” is put into barrels to age. (These barrels can be reused for a very, very long time. The one in the picture above is from 1512, isn’t that nuts?).

Traditional balsamic vinegar must be aged a minimum of 12 years (yes, 12!!) to get approval and certification by the consortium. The way this is done is that the grape “stuff” is put into a set of five or six barrels, consecutively smaller. The top is left open for evaporation, covered with a cloth to prevent bugs, etc. from entering. Each year the smallest barrel is filled by adding some vinegar from the second smallest barrel, the second smallest barrel is filled by adding some vinegar from the third smallest barrel, all the way up. The largest barrel gets new grape “stuff” added to it.

Only after 12 years can the balsamic vinegar be taken out of the small barrel to be bottled. This is an insane process, as 100kg of grapes ends up making only a couple of liters (max) of balsamic vinegar. No wonder it is so expensive!

With this tour we got to try a bunch of samples of traditional balsamic vinegar. As with cheese, balsamic vinegar gets better (and more expensive) as it ages, and we first tried ones that were aged 12 and 25 years, and of course we liked the 25 year one better (it was sweeter and thicker). We then tried one that had been aged 100 years (no joke!!) and it was wayyyy too sweet, but it was fun to try. The one aged 100 years costs 200 Euros a bottle, which in my business consultant mind, is not even close to enough.

The final interesting part is that the bottling is not done on site. Because the consortium regulates not only the labeling of the bottles, but also their shape, the production facility sends their products to be bottled by the consortium itself.

Yummy, yummy, get in my tummy

So yes, overall this was a very delicious day! It was a bit long, as we left our agriturismo in Piozzano early in the morning, did the Parmigiano Reggiano tour, went to Parma town, did the balsamic vinegar tour, then drove to Florence and checked into our apartment. But, it was a blast and a day in foodie heaven!

————————————————————-

Read more about our time in Italy using the links below:

• Italy Country Recap – What we loved (and didn’t love) in our six weeks there
• Italy – The plan for our six weeks here
• Italy – Visiting Pisa – the Leaning Tower and the Luminara festival
• Italy – Our day in Lucca
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 1: Montecarlo (Tuscany)
• Italy – Four days in Bologna
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 2: a vineyard in the Chianti region (Tuscany)
• Italy – Wineries and wine tasting in Chianti
• Italy – One day in Siena!
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 3: Emilia Romagna
• Italy – Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory and Balsamic Vinegar producer tours (you are here!)
• Italy – Hiking Cinque Terre
• Italy – Our three days in Florence
• Italy – Brunello wine tasting and visiting thermal baths
• Italy – Our three days in Rome