This Family-run Farm Stay in Italy Makes the Best Balsamic Vinegar I’ve Ever Tasted—and They Have Nonnas Cooking Fresh Pasta Every Week - Dining and Cooking

You’re sitting on a breezy patio, looking out over the vineyard-lined hills of Modena. There’s a chilled glass of Lambrusco wine in one hand (preferably a glass of their Le 9 Meraviglie) and a small plate of Parmigiano in the other. The wine’s gentle berry flavors mix oh-so-delicately with the punchy cheese in your mouth. For a moment, you think, “I could do this forever.” While you may not be able to live off wine and cheese indefinitely (if you could, we all would), you can at least enjoy them to the fullest at Acetaia Sereni, a 62-acre, five-suite, family-run estate.

Tucked away in the hills of Marano sul Panaro, just south of Modena, the property invites guests to check into one of the family’s suites, each with a private terrace or balcony overlooking rolling green hillsides and offering a sense of serenity you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. (And make sure to be on that balcony for sunset over the vines. It’s as picturesque as it gets.)

While the suites are charming, it’s the food and drinks that are the star of the show. Every table is filled with the family’s balsamic and olive oil products, ripe for tasting. A glass of their Lambrusco wine and Modenese classics like tortellini with savory pork delight tourists and locals alike.

“Only by taking the time to experience these simple moments can you truly feel part of our Modenese food-lovers community,” says Francesco Sereni, who helps run the estate alongside his family. To make the connection even stronger, guests should plan a stay that includes at least one Thursday, when local nonnas come up from town to hand-make and fill all the tortelli pasta for the week.

And really, it makes sense for all these divine flavors to converge here. The larger Emilia-Romagna region, in north-central Italy, is known as the “food valley” and is the birthplace of some of the world’s favorite foods and wines, including Prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano Reggiano, balsamic vinegar, and Lambrusco (and supercars like Ferrari and Lamborghini, but that’s just a fun fact to keep in your back pocket).

Much of that bounty comes down to the dirt. The region’s hills and plains hold some of Italy’s most fertile farmland, home to everything from Lambrusco vineyards to the apricot and peach orchards that have also earned Romagna the nickname Italy’s “fruit valley.”

Beyond wines, Acetaia Sereni also produces both Balsamic Vinegar of Modena P.G.I. (Protected Geographical Indication, or IGP in Italian) and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin, or DOP). The P.D.O. is the rarer, more luxurious of the two, and it’s strictly regulated. The grapes must be grown in the province of Modena, and the processing, aging, and bottling must also happen there (much as Champagne can only come from the Champagne region in France). Neighboring Reggio Emilia makes its own traditional balsamic under a separate P.D.O.

The barrel room with the longest battery in the world seen in the middle. It is currently only used for the limited edition “Epocale XX”.
Credit: Alessandra Amodio/Travel + Leisure

After the grapes are pressed and the must is cooked, it goes into a battery, a set of progressively smaller wooden barrels made from different types of wood (the family has the longest battery in the world, made up of a whopping 30 barrels, while most others are whittled down to about six or seven), used to age traditional balsamic vinegar. As with whiskey, an angel’s share evaporates every year. To make up for it, producers top off each barrel with vinegar from the next largest one, working up the line until they reach the biggest barrel, which they refill with freshly cooked grape must.

Traditional Balsamic Vinegar must age at least 12 years before they draw a small amount from the smallest cask for bottling. The cherry on top is that a tasting panel must approve the results, and the vinegar can be bottled only in the iconic 100-milliliter bulb-shaped glass bottle designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

The P.G.I. is a far quicker affair. It blends cooked or concentrated grape must with wine vinegar, sometimes with a touch of caramel for color, and ages it in wooden barrels for at least 60 days. While the blending and processing must occur in the provinces of Modena or Reggio Emilia, the grapes can come from outside the region. The end product has a thinner texture and a sharper, punchier sweet-and-sour flavor than the P.D.O., which is thick, glossy, smooth, and deeply complex.

Nonna Santina, born at the turn of the 20th century, is credited with overseeing the family’s first balsamic vinegar operation. The family still has—and uses—barrels from her heyday. Steeped in history and tradition, the family still oversees every piece of the production.

A stay here can be many things. It can be an adventure for your taste buds through food and wine, or a sensory experience for your eyes as you take in these gorgeous views. It can be a historical deep dive, with Sereni as your guide. Or really, it can simply be a relaxing getaway. The best part is, it’s up to you. Though you really do need to like balsamic vinegar.

“Balsamic Vinegar of Modena is not just a commodity, not just a business. It’s part of our culture,” Sereni says. “For centuries, it’s something we’ve passed down from generation to generation, just like a language or a dialect. We preserve the labor and the local agriculture of decades before, into small wooden barrels.”

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