The Consorzio Aceto Balsamico di Modena (Modena Balsamic Vinegar Consortium), a voluntary consortium of producers, was formed specifically to safeguard the product and its authenticity. Since its establishment it has organised a variety of initiatives to achieve this, and it has also drafted a set of important rules to guarantee producers' standards, and the strong link to the Modena area.
These rules, binding on all producers, can be summarised as follows:

	The musts used for production come solely from grapes grown in Emilia Romagna;
	All lots of must used are analysed and approved by the Fraud Prevention Service of the Italian Agriculture and Forestry Ministry;
	The producer must have sufficient capacity, in wooden barrels or casks, to assure that the product sold has been matured or aged for the stated period;
	The product must have been matured for a period up to 3 years in wooden recipients (bordeaux red seal) OR aged for over 3 years (white seal) in wooden casks or barrels.
	All transfers of raw materials must be recorded in an authenticated register;
	After the refining and ageing stage, before bottling the vinegar is analysed by a laboratory approved by the Consorzio Aceto Balsamico di Modena to ensure that it complies with the chemical, flavour and aroma characteristics required by the rules, which are more severe than the legal requirements;
	Modena Balsamic Vinegar bearing the seal has been produced and bottled in the zone of origin;
	The texts and ingredients stated on the members' labels are compliant with the regulations on transparency and fair competition;

The consortium's seals, consecutively numbered and recorded in a special register all members are obliged to keep, are therefore an important aid to consumers who may sometimes be faced with products that carry no guarantees.

Until July 2005 the assignment to carry out the controls on the product it was entrusted to Cermet, then replaced from CSQA from August 2005