From Europe to Ukiah
Get Your Flavor Fix with California Balsamic
by Sarah Reith
Balsamic vinegar is just like Champagne: the real stuff is only made in one small European region with lots of very old buildings and breathtaking views. It’s typically made from Trebbiano and Lambrusco grapes that are pressed into a sweet syrup and aged in wooden barrels for 12-25 years. A few vats of this liquid then make their way from Modena, Italy, to a warehouse on Mazzoni Street at the north end of Ukiah.
There, the artisans of California Balsamic use it to make more than 50 flavors of dressings and marinades, from dessert- sweet Raspberry Flame to the sodium-free Teriyaki. Pumpkin Spice and Autumn Apple flourish in the fall. Lavender carries memories of spring into the rest of the year. Crisp Cucumber is light and sweet, like that first fresh garden treat you snapped off the vine, so many months ago.
Thomas Allen bought the business (previously known as Tres Classique) in 1996, and he has been expanding the offerings ever since. One Tuesday morning in June, he led a visitor around the warehouse, starting with the “museum.” This is a cluster of corked bottles, some of them in fanciful shapes, containing the last of the Tres Classique flavors. “One good earthquake, and there goes our history,” he joked. The very next day, a 5.6 quake struck Willits, knocking out power and sending inventory crashing to the ground. But the Tres Classique museum stood.
It’s not the first time the business has withstood a disaster. Warehouse manager Patrick Webb recalled several times
when he took a laptop to the PG&E charging station during fires and power outages so he could keep up with orders and correspond with customers.
Another disaster, which, like megafires, was decades in the making, led to one of California Balsamic’s signature flavors. In the late 90’s, Meyer lemons rebounded from a virus that had threatened the entire California citrus industry. Chefs like Alice Waters extolled their many marvels, which had the usual impact on price and supply. Lemon Splash, a versatile favorite at California Balsamic, was about to become a casualty of history.
Then a customer at a farmers market in Sonoma told Allen that she had just persuaded her 25-year-old son to eat the first salad of his life. All it took was a mixture of Premium White Balsamic and essential orange oil. The information slipped into Allen’s subconscious as he went about the rest of his day.
At three in the morning, he sat bolt upright in bed, as if he had just been electrified. “I could take essential lemon oil, white balsamic, and rice bran oil (which is flavorless and has a high smoking point)!” he exclaimed, like so many recipients of 3:00am inspirations before him. “That would solve the problem of the Meyer lemon shortage!” When he tried the recipe, “My eyeballs bugged out of my head,” he reported. “I knew right then: this will be the most popular flavor I ever make. 27 years later, that’s still true.” Electric Lemon Vinaigrette is a staple for any balsamic vinegar connoisseur.
But it was the sodium-free Teriyaki that drew him into the celebrity vegan circle. On that quiet Tuesday morning before the earthquake, he led his visitor into the commercial kitchen, where Kristen Norsworthy was infusing a five-gallon bucket of aged red balsamic with organic garlic and ginger.
“I always ask new customers if they’re part of the SOS community, or if they’re general public,” Allen said, dipping a spoon into the fresh sauce. The SOS community follows a strict sugar, oil, and sodium-free diet, as he discovered when one of its leading luminaries discovered him.
Not long before the pandemic, Allen was working a booth at the farmers market in Morro Bay when a customer asked if he had anything that was sugar, oil, and sodium free. “Only these 15 flavors here,” he told her. She bought a few, and sent a message about the product to Chef AJ, a vegan cookbook author and influencer.
Soon, the chef reached out to Allen, asking if she could try some for herself. “I was about to pass,” he recalled, with the air of a man who has had a narrow brush with fate. “We don’t sell our product in bulk,” which he assumed was what the chef wanted. But, just as he was about to hit send on the polite refusal, he decided to ask about her restaurant instead. She explained that she didn’t have a restaurant—just 20,000 followers on YouTube. He sent her a bottle of Teriyaki, and she invited him to demonstrate a recipe on her show.
By the time the pandemic shut down all the festivals and farmers markets where Allen had been selling his product for years, the working relationship with the chef was rock solid. He became a regular guest on the show, drizzling balsamic and telling tales about the time the donkeys ran down the street during an event in Cripple Creek, or that other time when a storm roared through a festival in Glenwood Springs.
The number of subscribers to the Chef AJ YouTube channel climbed to over a quarter of a million. Now, he reckons, his business is better than ever, with orders shipping out all over the world.
The tour was over, and Allen led his guest outside. He paused at the purple door to the warehouse, under the hand-painted sign. He spread his arms, to take in all the disasters, all the friendships, and all the sudden inspirations. “It’s just a little old dumpy warehouse that’s made an extraordinary number of people happy,” he concluded.
California Balsamic
966 Mazzoni St. #2B, Ukiah
(707) 367-0155 | californiabalsamic.com
Open Mon - Fri 9:00am - 5:00pm
Available at farmers markets in Ukiah, Windsor, Healdsburg, and various NorCal festivals. Limited flavors available at the Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op, Mendocino Bounty, and the Mendocino Country Store.
Sarah Reith enjoys wildlife, gardening, and lounging around in her wild garden in inland Mendocino County.
