DPassing through Banyuls-sur-Mer, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, I promised myself to stop by La Guinelle. Many times, during my long wanderings in the shelves of delicatessens, I had been intrigued by the bottles of this artisanal vinegar factory. What caught my eye was their plump shape, all in opaque glass, and these cork stoppers, capped with red wax, which ostentatiously protrude from the neck, like natural wines or Burgundy grands crus. . Without being able to explain it too much, these containers took on something precious and delicate in my eyes – perhaps because, naively, I found that their aesthetic contrasted with that of the bottles of generic vinegar, of often mediocre quality, that the found in supermarkets.
Until now, I associated vinegar with the acrid and pungent taste, the one found in those large bottles with the scratched labels that one pulls out, once in a while, from the drawer to make a quick vinaigrette or deglaze a pan of onions. But this La Guinelle vinegar, made by Nathalie Lefort, a converted winegrower, I had read in a guide, was a product renowned throughout the world which had real gastronomic value. Better, a chef told me one day that it was so good that you could drink it with a teaspoon.
Between two fangs in my “sandwich tapé” (banyulencque specialty, a kind of local panini), I headed for the La Guinelle shop, not far from the central beach. Arriving there, the vinegar seller invited me, as is customary here, to do a tasting session. In a turn of heels, my hostess went to the shelves. As an apothecary selects his best potions for you, she returned from her quest with her arms laden with flasks. There was a red Banyuls vinegar (aged for a year in oak barrels), a white vinegar made from savagnin (a typical Jura wine), another made from chenin (a Loire grape variety), and then a last, red, infused with saffron pistils.
Sweetness and length in the mouth
On an old weathered wooden counter, she placed four goblets for my attention, each containing 2 centilitres of pure vinegar. At this moment, my lips grimaced at the idea of having to taste the acidic liquid, in small successive swigs. And yet, as the brew coated the inside of my mouth, then raced down my esophagus, I felt no burning, no shivering. The experience, on the contrary, was pleasant in every way; there were, in these bottles, all the taste markers that are usually found in a tasting of wine, even spirits: sweetness, length in the mouth, oxidative notes in some, citrus notes for others.
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