Monday, August 7. Parma, Italy. Food Tour. 

Wow!  Fun day with Laura!

We had a full day regional food tour scheduled with Laura. She showed up at our hotel to pick us up and said let’s go. Brianne asked her where everyone was and she said this is it, just you, Tim and me. 

Our own personal tour guide for the next 8 hours. 

We visited the Latteria Sociale Nuova, a family run, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese producing company. It was a long process I won’t go into but the minute clip below shows the son and a worker bringing up the Parmesan ball from the bottom of the vat. That one Parmesan ball in the video makes two Parmesan cheese wheels.  The Parmesan wheels age in their store house for three years before they sell them. 

We bought some, but it won’t make it home. 

That one Copper vat holds 300 gallons of cows milk, whey and renit.        It takes 150 gallons per cheese wheel.           40 cows milk per cheese wheel                  Cost to a restaurant to purchase 500€ ($600) per cheese wheel. (640€ organic cheese wheel) This small company makes 20-25 wheels per day         Copper Vats cost 12,000€ each.        90lbs per wheel.

The above video clip shows the granddaughter of the original owner of the Vineyard. 

They have 17 acres of grape vines = 175,000 bottles wine per year. Vines produce for 40 yrs. First 3 yrs after planting/grafting no grapes produced. 

We went to a balsamic vinegar company. A small one. 

We tasted 12/20/25 year old aged balsamic vinegar (BV).

The BV is switched from different barrels each year and cannot be sold as BV under their label and consortium until it has aged 12 years in 5 different types of wood barrels. Barrels are kept not remade every 3 years like wine. Some barrels in the pictures are 100-200+ years old. One barrel we saw has 60 year old aging BV inside it. 

BV starts with 100 liters grape juice/must. 20 years later it has evaporated to 2 liters. 25 years total it has evaporated to less than 1 liter. 

Visited a family run prociutto company. Crazy pig legs everywhere. Hanging for three years before they sell. Had lunch at La Lanterna and was served four different kinds of ravioli. Pumpkin, potato, spinach and mushroom. 

Oh yeah, we found a Lindt chocolate store the night before.