Passage to Banyuls-sur-Mer, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, I promised to make a hook by Guinelle. Many times, during my long wanderings in the shelves of fine grocery stores, I was intrigued by the bottles of this artisanal vinegar. What attracted my eye was their dodue shape, all in opaque glass, and these cork caps, hooded with red wax, which protrude from the neck in an ostentatious way, in the manner of natural wines or the great wines of Burgundy . Without being able to explain it too much, these containers put in my eyes something precious and delicate – perhaps because, naively, I found that their aesthetic contrasts with that of bottles of generic vinegar, with often poor quality, that ‘we find in large distribution.
Until now, I associated vinegar with a hard and spicy taste, the one found in these large bottles with scraped labels that we extricate, once in time, from the drawer to make a Minute vinaigrette or deglaze a pan -fried onion. But this Guinelle vinegar, made by Nathalie Lefort, a converted winegrower, had I read in a guide, was a product renowned all over the world which had a real gastronomic value. Better still, a chef had one day said that he was so good that you could drink it with a spoon.
Between two fangs in my “Tapped sandwich” (Banyulencque specialty, a sort of local panini), I took the direction of the Guinelle boutique, a stone’s throw from the central beach. Arriving on site, the vinegar saleswoman Integita, as it is customary here, to do a tasting session. In a heels turn, my hostess went to the shelves. As an apothecary selects her best potions for you, she returned from her quest her arms loaded with bottles. There was a red Banyuls vinegar (aged for a year in oak barrels), a white vinegar made from Savagnin (a typical Jura wine), another from Chenin (a Loire), and then a Last, red, infused with saffron pistils.
Successful and length in the mouth
On an old patinated wooden counter, she placed four cups to my attention, each containing 2 centilitres of pure vinegar. At this moment, my lips grimacted at the idea of having to taste the acidic liquid, in small successive lampates. And, yet, as the drink lined the inside of my mouth, then ran along my esophagus, I felt no burn, no thrust. The experience, on the contrary, was pleasant in every way; There was, in these bottles, all the taste markers that are usually found in a tasting of wine, even spirits: succor, a length in the mouth, oxidative notes in some, notes of citrus fruits For others.
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