(Food Stories)Nestled neatly on a plate, draped in a verdant wild garlic cream and adorned with delicate chervil leaves and white borage blossoms, sits a portion of spaghetti—a masterpiece in the eyes of the renowned Piedmontese three-star chef, Enrico Crippa. The name of the pasta maker is no secret: Mancini. Crippa isn’t the only Italian Michelin-starred chef who cooks with pasta from the Le Marche region. Other three-star chefs like Niko Romito and Giovanni Santini also feature Mancini Pastificio Agricolo’s linguine and other pasta on their menus—and they do so without the typical commercial contracts often found in such collaborations. These chefs choose to purchase from Mancini without the incentive of a sponsorship deal or endorsement agreement—simply because the product speaks for itself.

So, what makes this brand so special? On the one hand, the answer is in the texture and the flavor. Mancini’s pasta tastes like what it’s made from—wheat. Mancini works exclusively with wheat grown on their own land. From the company’s building in Monte San Pietrangeli, depending on the season, you can see part of the green or golden fields swaying in the wind. Wheat and pasta, raw material and finished product, are closer together here than anywhere else in the world of durum wheat pasta. Let’s take a brief look at the wine industry: it’s entirely normal for winemakers to grow their own vines. Grower champagne—unlike that from large champagne houses, which buy their grapes—has its own special aura. But for a pasta producer to grow four types of durum wheat in such a small, specific region while collaborating with a seed expert to develop varieties and grind the wheat freshly three times a week—that’s unique. Mancini calls its product “estate pasta,” not just “artisanal pasta.” The latter term is used by many, often referring to bronze dies (and sometimes suggesting that overly rough surfaces are a sign of higher quality, which, upon tasting, proves baseless—especially when the pasta dries out too quickly).

For Pastificio Mancini, wheat is what grapes are to winemakers. With all the benefits—complete control over the raw material, starting from the seeds—and all the challenges. The wheat fields, like vineyards, experience different microclimatic conditions and various soil types. A hillside must be cultivated differently than flat terrain, and a north-facing slope requires a different wheat variety than a sunny south-facing one. Consumers are not trained to taste this, but the pasta naturally has terroir. And just like wine, there are good harvest years and bad ones. Yet few are used to thinking about pasta this way, while endless discussions about the quality of wine, coffee, or olive oil are all too common. Durum wheat pasta is generally seen as an inexpensive staple, more or less an anonymous sauce carrier in various shapes, with the choice of shape providing the only expert conversation. For most consumers, it’s the sauce that elevates the pasta and defines the dish. The wheat and its processing often go unnoticed, even though they determine so much. Would consumers understand paying more for olive oil in a year with a poor harvest? Probably. Pasta, however, doesn’t get that chance. Pasta is expected to always be available, always cook at the same time, and always cost the same. At Mancini, they want to change how people think about pasta, especially by introducing the concept of vintage.

Most of the competition in the pasta world operates very differently: both industry giants and smaller producers source their wheat from Canada, the U.S.—where glyphosate is used—and Australia. At Mancini, the factory and the wheat fields are within about 30 kilometers of each other in the provinces of Fermo and Macerata. Mancini is shielded from supply chain issues caused by sanctions or wars; only severe weather could affect supply (or perhaps a general strike of all combined harvester drivers). Pasta supply became a topic in Italy at the start of the Ukraine war, when concerns about wheat supply arose. However, pasta was unaffected, as Ukraine primarily grows soft wheat for baking.

The story of Pasta Mancini reads differently than you might expect, given its reputation. While honorable competitors, like Dino Martelli from Tuscany—whom Mancini greatly respects—refer to generations of pasta makers, Mancini Pastificio Agricolo began in 2010. There is, indeed, the narrative of a grandfather (complete with a black-and-white portrait), but at the beginning was the wheat—and the vision of an agronomist trained in marketing. Mariano Mancini laid the foundation as a wheat farmer in 1938. The Le Marche region is ideal for durum wheat cultivation: the soil is rich in clay, and the wind between the mountains and sea ensures clean air. Mariano’s grandson, Massimo, the current head of the company, studied agricultural sciences in Bologna and marketing in Lyon and, in short, sought to elevate the family’s wheat. He didn’t want to sell the grain anonymously with a focus on maximum weight. Massimo Mancini wanted to transform it, as he puts it. While he continues to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps by growing wheat, today, the wheat reaches the market in an enhanced form (at a multiple of its original price): as durum wheat pasta in the distinctive white and orange packaging, so exceptional that it’s served in about half of Italy’s three-star restaurants.

This success hasn’t stopped Mancini from continuing to improve the quality of their pasta. Renowned seed expert Oriana Porfiri is working with Mancini on new varieties, not in a lab in a white coat, but in the field, where she (in a simplified manner of speaking) unites the female part of one durum wheat grain with the male part of another—and waits. What does Mancini hope for from these new wheat varieties? On one hand, the grain should become even better adapted to the local growing conditions. On the other hand, they want to refine the wheat’s flavor and further enhance the pasta’s texture and the elastic resistance it provides once you bite into it.

So far, Mancini processes four wheat varieties: Maestà, early-ripening with high protein content; Nazareno, the most widely grown; Nonno Mariano, developed on their test fields in 2019 and named after the grandfather; and Farrah, particularly resilient and high-yielding. At Mancini, they practice crop rotation: wheat alternates in the fields with other crops like clover, fava beans, chickpeas, and sunflowers in a regular cycle. This allows the soil to recover and naturally replenishes it with different nutrients—wheat is highly nitrogen-demanding. To grow wheat on 800 hectares requires about 1,600 hectares of land, as only about half is planted with wheat at any given time; the other fields owned by Mancini glow yellow or green depending on the crop rotation. Leaving fertile land as healthy as possible for future generations is very important to Massimo Mancini. Fertile land doesn’t belong to us, he says.

The wheat enters these machines, if you will, from above as fine semolina and leaves it vertically as pasta, which is then horizontally moved along for drying. Acting as magicians in between are a kneading device that mixes the semolina with water and bronze dies that shape the dough into pasta.

The bronze dies, heavy round discs, wait on racks in the grain-scented, humid hall for their turn. Each has its pasta shape noted in large letters with a marker—evocative words like chitarrone, bucatini, linguine, penne lisce … These bronze dies are the real heart of the production. Bronze gives the pasta a rougher surface, helping it hold the sauce better, unlike pasta that has been extruded through Teflon dies. Depending on the production schedule, different dies are fitted into the machine. Ordering new pasta shapes always involves a bit of discussion, says Lorenzo Settimi. For instance, when ordering a common spiral shape, the Neapolitan bronze smith wants to know whether it’s spoon pasta or fork pasta they envision since that determines the exact size. Even the term “medium-sized” sparks further debate.

The bronze dies encourage visitors to think in three dimensions: Which pasta shape creates the small wave? Which one makes the short, rice-like line, the tiny dot or the large circle with jagged edges? Fusilli, Linguine, Capellini, and Paccheri are just a few of the shapes Mancini offers. All of them share one thing: an especially long drying phase. (Watching a row of fresh spaghetti sway gently in the fan breeze is one of life’s small pleasures.) While pasta elsewhere is finished in just three hours at over 100°C, Pastificio Mancini allows its noodles up to 44 hours at temperatures below 55°C. They know that a long drying phase, like the choice of wheat varieties, is essential for creating truly exceptional pasta.

(I.) Crush the tomatoes between your fingers, letting them fall into a saucepan. Stir in the tomato juices, olive oil, and season with Sicilian sea salt to taste.

(II.) To cook the pasta, heat a large pot of water. When the water reaches a boil, add a palmful of salt until the water is salty. Add the spaghetti and cook for 11 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the pasta to the saucepan with the tomatoes.

(III.) Add half a cup of the pasta water and toss together everything over medium heat to combine for about 1 minute. Then divide spaghetti into four bowls, and serve with drizzle of olive oil and add a sprig of fresh basil. If you like, grate some parmigiano cheese on top.