Great Taste Award Winners

'Tchin-Tchin' vinegar

£30.00

In a nutshell: This balsamic-style vinegar is highly concentrated with a beautiful caramel brown colour, honeyed flavour and delicious aroma of quinces and grapes. 

Great Taste 2018 1-star award winner

Domaine Claire Mayol 2016 grenache gris wine was used to make this superb vinegar. The wine is first reduced by boiling in cauldrons before being placed in barrels where acetification can take place. It then undergoes a double fermentation (both alcoholic and acetic) which takes between 18 and 24 months. Once the vinegar reaches 5° acidity, it is then aged in glass demijohns for a further 3 months before bottling in small bottles. This concentrated nectar-like vinegar has a lovely caramel colour, sweet ambrosia-like flavour and intense nose of fresh grapes and quinces. Perfect for drizzling over a pear, walnut and cheese salad or try adding a few drops to a warm bean or courgette salad. 

Details 100ml; 5° acidity, no sulfites.

About La Guinelle
We are proud to be the sole 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 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.