Bologna Area Tours & Museums

 We had a fantastic tour which turned out to be a private tour. All day including breakfast, snacks, a massive lunch (we did not need dinner and had leftovers for the next day), and lots of wine along the way. But it was not a wine tour. We watched Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese being made, tasted and learned about Balsamic vinegar, and visited a Prosciutto factory. 

Alessandro (driver), Alessandro (tour company owner and our guide), Jeff, and Giorgio (bartender at the Prosciutto factory event space and tasting room). Everyone is vaccinated. 


Serena and Alessandro in our hygienic outfits at the cheese factory. 

We had outfits like these at the prosciutto factory also.


Copper vats for making Parmigiano-Reggiano. There is a double wall which allows steam for cooking the cheese.


18 farms are part of this cooperative. Each farmer delivers milk every day in the morning and afternoon. The cheese is made of skimmed milk (the previous day’s afternoon delivery) and whole milk (today’s morning delivery). It is mixed in the vat with rennet, allowed to coagulate, broken up into curds, and cooked. Each vat makes two large rounds of cheese. The fat skimmed from the afternoon milk is used to make ricotta. Giorgio (photo center) is The Cheesemaker here. He decides when the cheese is ready for the next step and how long to cook. 


Finished cheese lifted from the vat. This will be divided in two. Some of the remaining whey goes into the ricotta but most is sold (animal feed and protein drinks).


Cheeses aging. There were rows and rows of this. Possibly remembering correctly that there is $8,000,000 of cheese in this room. 


A plastic sleeve with braille-like markings is placed around the cheese when it is first put into the mold. It leaves an impression in the hardened cheese identifying: Parmigiano-Reggiano, the factory #1383, and the month/year of production. When the cheese is inspected and approved it gets stamped. Every single cheese is individually inspected.


We visited Antica Acetaia Cavedoni

True Balsamic comes in only one size and shape of bottle. Red label is 12 years aged and gold label is minimum 25 years. BUT, gold label could be MUCH older.


Products in other size/shape bottle that say Balsamic and even di Modena have various percentages of Balsamic and other vinegars. We were strongly cautioned to look at the labels. “Grape must” should be the first ingredient.


This family has been producing balsamic since 1860 and we were able to see the batteria (graduated set of barrels) that are still producing that line. We also saw at least a dozen other “family” batteria. The tradition is to start a new batteria for each new family member (don’t know if that applies when people marry in or just to new children). Each batteria has minimum five barrels and each one must be a different wood - after five you can repeat the type of wood. One especially fascinating aspect is that as the barrels wear out over time they are NOT replaced! Rather, a cooper comes, removes the metal bands and builds a new barrel around the outside of the old barrel. Otherwise the balsamic would be shocked and altered by the different wood. 


Each year in the winter, the barrels are checked to see how much has evaporated (they have a small opening on top that is covered by a cloth). The smallest barrel is topped off with vinegar from the next largest barrel and so on. The largest is topped off with new cooked grape must. True Balsamic comes from the smallest barrel and they only take 10% each year. We can’t recall if they take it before or after topping off.


Our third stop was a prosciutto factory. The experience started with burrata flatbreads, prosciutto, and more wine. 

This factory processes A LOT of pork, not just the part that becomes Prosciutto. 


We seriously thought all the food and wine we’d already had counted as the lunch part of the tour. Nope! Lunch included more wine, appetizers, a first pasta course (two different pastas), a second meat course (again two types), dessert, and a digestif drink. And Alessandro gave us a bottle of wine to take as we left. This was a seriously amazing day.


We went to both Ferrari Museums. The museum in Maranello is dedicated to racing cars.

The museum in Modena shows a variety of Ferrari’s and gives information about the history of motorsport in this area which is sometimes called Motor Valley due to the presences of Ferrari, Masserati, Alfa Romeo, and other supporting industries.



And of course we went to the Ducati Motorcycle Museum.

We were at the Australia MotoGP race when Australian Casey Stoner #27 won the world championship.

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