Not fake.
"Balsamic vinegar that is not labelled "tradizionale" (traditional) is a blend of wine vinegar and grape must, made from grapes with no particular provenance and aged in wooden or steel barrels for just a few months."
The balsamic vinegar most of us buy is not the super expensive 'Traditional balsamic vinegar', which is what they're describing aging in barrels for 12 years. It may still be 'balsamic vinegar of Modena', which is a protected term but with much less strict requirements, and consequently much cheaper. And 'balsamic vinegar' without qualifiers is not protected at all, as far as I know. It seems like a stretch to call these fakes.
Either protected term can fetch a better price than generic 'balsamic vinegar', so someone will have a go at faking some paperwork to make their product more valuable. The Guardian article describes one such case that was caught (in 2019), but doesn't say much about how prevalent this is.
Italy has local standards called, DOP and IGP, if I recall correctly. DOP is the elite stuff. You dont put this on salads. Some varieties are almost gel like. This is the stuff that was sitting in someones attic for ten years. IGP is still good but not as good, and it still has to come from the right region. Costco in the US sells Kirkland balsamic vinegar di Modena, and it is IGP. You can imagine that at Costco scale, it is not sitting in someones attic. This is still excellent, by the way.
Then there is all the rest, that claims to be balsamic vinegar, but was produced to meet high scale, low price points.
The article is simply saying that what you likely buy in the supermarket is unlikely to be DOP and might not even be IGP. Thats not really news.
This is just about protected names. If you make champagne but you don't do it in Champagne then it is "fake champagne", but if you make cheddar but not in Cheddar then it's "real".
> but using the same name as a product with expensive ingredients
Incorrect. The difference in name is omission of the word traditional.
The problem I have with "fake" and "real", particularly with Italian and French goods, is there's often a "Produced from this region by these people" incorporated into the definition of "real".
This is very apparent when you look into things like "Mozzarella". Italy would have you believe that mozzarella could only be produced in Italy as if the region somehow blesses the cheese with magic properties. The reality is the mozzarella is just renat + milk. The only arguable difference is which animal milk is used (for most, it's beef).
If the breakdown process of balsamic vinegar ends up producing a chemically and flavor profile identical to just red wine vinegar and grape must, then who cares if it's "fake"?
Aging in barrels, just like whiskey and a bunch of other alcohols. The geographic designation is only important because it's the only authority that guarantees that the manufacturer is selling what they claim. I couldn't care less about Modena or Reggio Emilia but I want something that's been aged in a barrel, not just mixed with thickener to make it look reduced.
It's not acceptable to dilute Everclear with food coloring and flavoring and call it whiskey, regardless of geographic designation, which is what these "fake" balsamic vinegars are essentially doing.
> If the breakdown process of balsamic vinegar ends up producing a chemically and flavor profile identical to just red wine vinegar and grape must, then who cares if it's "fake"?
The process doesn't produce the same flavors. Not even close. As a lover of real aged balsamic, it just doesn't compare. It's just cheap and good enough for many recipes so I use it as often as the real stuff, but it's a cheap imitation through and through.
Claiming to be something it is not.
I thought it was going to be more like wasabi, where most places just serve green horseradish.