Did you know that Orléans in the Loire valley was the dominant producer of vinegar in France from the late middle ages until the late 1800’s?
Vinegar, vinaigre in French (which means sour wine – vin aigre) was very important at a time when refrigeration didn’t exist. It was one of the things that enabled people to preserve food (along with salt, but that’s another story).
The oldest method of making vinegar is called the Orléans Method’ or slow process.
Wine was shipped along the Loire from further west to Orléans where it was discharged and transported to Paris by land (until the Briare Canal was built at the end of the 17th century).
Orléans had many wine merchants who would sample the casks of wine before sending them onwards to their clients. If the wine tasted good, it went on its way, if it didn’t pass the test, it was left to turn into vinegar.
A corporation was founded in 1394 to fix prices and train apprentices and in 1580 it was given official status by King Henry III which gave it a monopoly on the production of vinegar in Orléans.
By the 1730’s there were 200 vinaigriers in Orléans and just before the Revolution there were 300 of them that produced 80% of the vinegar in the whole of France.
Industrialisation changed everything. A new quicker, cheaper process was developed in Germany and spirit vinegar became an ultra cheap alternative to the high quality wine vinegar of Orléans.
Today, there is just one producer left, Martin Pouret. Founded in 1797 and today run by the 6th generation of the same family, it still uses the Orléans process.
Wine is put into 240L barrels and it stays there for 3 weeks for the acetic fermentation to take place. Ethyl alcohol undergoes partial oxidation that results in the formation of acetaldehyde. It then ages for 1 year in big oak casks.
It takes 48 hours to produce industrial vinegar.
I’m happy to say that I can buy Martin Pouret’s vinegar in the local supermarket here in the Loire. Supporting the last and only traditional vinegar producer in Orléans gives me great pleasure.
