Great Taste Award Winners

Aged Banyuls Vinegar

£30.00

In a nutshell: This complex aged Banyuls vinegar, with honeyed flavours, is made with vintage 10-year old wine from the famous Vial-Magneres estate.

Great Taste 2017 1 star award winner

This superb vinegar uses wine that's over ten years old from the famous Vial-Magneres estate. The Saperas family make some of the best examples of old-style Banyuls wines, hand picking all the grapes on their 10 hectares of small hillside terraced plots around Port-Vendres and Banyuls. They age for long periods in oak barrels to achieve some amazing 'rancio' flavours in their very best wines. Once its been turned into vinegar in barrels at La Guinelle, it then benefits from further ageing in glass demijohns. The result is an incredibly complex vinegar, with honey and dried fruit aromas and a lovely mellow finish. Drizzle it over a heritage tomato salad, BBQ steak and squid or use to deglaze a pan or to add some depth to your sauces and stews.

Details 500ml; 6.5° acidity

About La Guinelle
We are very proud to be the UK distributor for La Guinelle vinegars. These amazing vinegars are made by Nathalie Lefort in her charming open air vinaigrerie In Cosprons, a hillside village near Port-Vendres, overlooking the rocky Cote Vermeille coast close to Spain. Nathalie bought the small house at the end of a dusty lane in 1999 and soon after decided to revive the lost art of making artisan vinegar outdoors. Her philosophy is very simple - "You need good wine to make great vinegar and you let nature do the rest." She uses the famous fortified red Banyuls dessert wine from local vineyards for her core vinegars, plus she also makes some limited production single grape varietal vinegars. Everything is done outdoors "en plein air", using an organic double fermentation process where the wines and vinegars are exposed to natural airborne bacteria in oak barrels for up to 8 months before further ageing in glass demijohns that are shaded from the sun. Discovered by top French chefs, we hope they will also find a spot in your kitchen as a great ingredient to add to favourite recipes, enhance many sauces, gravies and as a finishing ingredient used in the same way as a good quality extra virgin olive oil drizzled onto a dish.

Every year, Nathalie and her team only make about 10,000 bottles including some really interesting, and unique, single varietal and 'flavoured' vinegars which we will always endeavour to buy and stock before they run out.