The Origens vinegars are about as far from flashy as you're going to get. They're not made by a fancy French chef, they don't have some big name winery behind them, and they're not sweet like Balsamic. They are made by a pair of really smart, really skilled and really nice women working with exceptionally good raw material. Having tasted and retasted many times, I'm ever more impressed with them each time I eat 'em. The flavors are really clean, yet very complex. The finish is long and mouth-watering.

I had the chance to visit Veronica Larrain, one of the two woman who makes them, when I went to Chile last February. Like her vinegars, Veronica doesn't fit the mold I might well have had in mind. Although she's trained in winemaking, she doesn't own a winery and she's not currently making wine. She's not a fourth generation vinegar maker, and she hasn't been doing this for forty years. Oh yeah, and although she goes by the nickname "Nina," she told me over dinner that some friends often refer to her as "Frankenstein."

"I'm always experimenting, always looking for new flavors and different macerations. I love to invent new products" she explained, smiling in a sort of mischievous way. Nina will happily and eloquently share thoughts about everything from her product to the wine it's made from, from her family to Chilean culture and history. In fact, for her, they're all very clearly tied together.

Nina's interest in vinegar actually goes back to her formal work with wine. "I studied agriculture in Catholic University here in Chile, and then specialized in horticulture and oenology. I worked in a winery and then went to the States with my husband who was studying there, and while we were there with my partner Maria Ines Irarrazaval, we began our investigation of the vinegar. I love vinegar. And we started with the question of why Chile had all those great wines but no great vinegar. When we came back home we started the experimentation and spent about two years working on it, testing different wine varieties and production methods.

"The idea," she explained, "was to produce healthy and unique premium vinegars from high quality wines, with no artificial flavors or colors, no sugar added and 100% natural. We wanted to keep the outstanding wine attributes and to reflect their origin. Also, one of our objectives was to produce vinegars you couldn't find anywhere. We select fine wines — the most important thing for vinegar is the wine you start with. The Cabernet vinegar for example must be balanced in terms of tannins and sourness." As you can see, she takes this stuff seriously. This isn't someone who's looking for a window of opportunity in the market.

For me, is one of the absolute critical components of well made vinegar. So much of what's on the market may look nice and sound good going by label alone, but it's made using any number of time and cost saving industrial shortcuts and you can most definitely taste the difference that the old, artisan process imparts. Nina's committed to staying true to the old ways, buying better wines and then nurturing their natural flavors rather than looking for ways to cut costs and corners.

"The result is an artisanal wine vinegar with a complex and elegant flavor. We age the vinegars between six months and a year. We only use natural decanting and then a soft filtration so that we don't lose too much flavor. We bottle all of them by hand and label them by hand as well. It's all small batches and we always are looking each time for the final blends to bring a great tasting vinegar."

In terms of actually using these things, mostly I just like them on nice salads where you can really taste the quality of the wine and their diligence in doing careful, traditional conversion to vinegar. But of course you can use them elsewhere, too. Add a drizzle to soups. Sprinkle on fruit salad. Make a vinaigrette (I'm sure Jaime Salm, Deli vinegar queen, would be glad to get you a recipe!) If you haven't tasted them yet, I really recommend just taking a small sip. As I've said the flavors are very clean, complex, and darned good! If you want to try a vinegar that's not so sweet, and won't break your budget, these are a really good way to go!

PS: They're sulfite free.

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