At a restaurant recently I ordered one of my favorite, and fairly healthy, salads. Tomato Caprice was the title at this particular culinary eatery. It is the thick "beef eaters" tomatoes, lush fresh moist mozzarella (the kind that comes in the watery milky liquid), red onion, fresh basil leaves and balsamic vinegar. If you have had this more than once and at several restaurants you know that it can vary in quality hugely from locale to locale.

I decided to spend the time and the money to find out what makes it the best it can be. My findings: $20 balsamic vinegar along with freshest ingredients possible make this easy salad beyond anything you can imagine.

The balsamic vinegar really makes the difference. The rich, thick, syrup of the aged vinegar from Modena needed no other addition to take these tomatoes, onion, basil and cheese to the top level in taste. But first you must truly understand balsamic vinegar.

Balsamic vinegar can be anywhere from $3 a bottle to $500.00 a bottle-I am not kidding. But these vinegars are as different as can be from one another. The higher priced vinegars are aged much longer than the thin, light, younger vinegars. Much like wine, it does make a difference in the aging. The more expensive balsamic are used sparingly - drop by drop - rather than poured liberally.

Needless to say I wasn't going to "cough up" the high end $500 so I searched through my gourmet deli's selection of about 50 different varieties for the ultimate middle priced/high quality choice. In doing so I learned also about the "4 leaf" grading system. The more leaves the better the quality.

One leaf is more acidic and each leaf up becomes much smoother. Three leaf Balsamic has a well rounded, full-bodied flavor. The four leaf is of course the one we wanted to try but most were over the $$ we wanted to pay (around $100 at the store we were at.) My $20 bottle has 4 leaves so although not the most expensive, it is the highest quality in its price range. The liquid is thick (as I could see through the bottle during my search) and sweet. (My husband and I debated drinking it.) I now truly understand strawberries served with balsamic vinegar and whipped cream and am looking forward to strawberry season.

True balsamic vinegar is only produced in Italy's regions of Modena and Reggio and is reduction of white sweet grapes that are boiled to a syrup by cooking slowly in copper cauldrons over an open flame until the water content is reduced by over 50%. The syrupy result is called "must" and is placed into wooden barrels (only approved woods are oak, cherry, chestnut, mulberry,juniper, and ash) and an older balsamic vinegar is added to assist in the "acetification".

Each year the vinegar is transferred to different wood barrels so that the vinegar can obtain some of the flavors of the different woods. The vinegar is divided into young (3-5 years), middle (6-12 years) and the very old (at least 12 years and up to 150 years old).