Provena · Producer
Mastro Sapore
29 linesBronze-drawn, slow-driedCases of 10–12 × 500 g · 12 × 180 gItaly
One shipment, 12 working days
from cleared payment
The producer
We are not heirs. We are witnesses. This land did not come to us by descent but through other people's hands: Antonio Fratta farmed it for decades, Gianfranco inherited its rhythm, and Mirko Farano arrived with questions and stayed for the answers. Antonio is eighty-eight. He could tell one durum variety from another at the age of eight, and he never left.
It starts in the field, not in the factory. We grow our own durum wheat in Italy and sow each variety only where that soil suits it, in rotation with soil-improving crops — alfalfa, clover, faba bean, pea, chickpea — or renewal crops such as sunflower and rapeseed, so the land gains fertility year on year. We mill coarse semolina on rollers that turn slowly, because speed heats the grain and costs it character.
Most harvested wheat is refrigerated so it will not ferment in the heat. Cold also takes the aroma with it. We keep ours in ventilated silos, in the shade.
Then it is bronze-drawn — and it matters how. Roughness does not come from the die alone, it comes from how little water is in the dough. More water gives a smooth dough that runs fast through the press: pasta that is bronze-drawn on paper and smooth in the hand. We use less water. More friction, more pressure, real porosity — pasta that holds a sauce and takes it in.
Drying is where the truth is told. Industrial pasta dries in a few hours at high temperature: quick, cheap, and it caramelises the starches. The result looks yellower and is poorer inside. Colour is not quality. Quality is how the pasta holds in the pot, how it sits afterwards, how it tastes. So we dry slowly, and let the pasta breathe.
It starts in the field, not in the factory. We grow our own durum wheat in Italy and sow each variety only where that soil suits it, in rotation with soil-improving crops — alfalfa, clover, faba bean, pea, chickpea — or renewal crops such as sunflower and rapeseed, so the land gains fertility year on year. We mill coarse semolina on rollers that turn slowly, because speed heats the grain and costs it character.
Most harvested wheat is refrigerated so it will not ferment in the heat. Cold also takes the aroma with it. We keep ours in ventilated silos, in the shade.
Then it is bronze-drawn — and it matters how. Roughness does not come from the die alone, it comes from how little water is in the dough. More water gives a smooth dough that runs fast through the press: pasta that is bronze-drawn on paper and smooth in the hand. We use less water. More friction, more pressure, real porosity — pasta that holds a sauce and takes it in.
Drying is where the truth is told. Industrial pasta dries in a few hours at high temperature: quick, cheap, and it caramelises the starches. The result looks yellower and is poorer inside. Colour is not quality. Quality is how the pasta holds in the pot, how it sits afterwards, how it tastes. So we dry slowly, and let the pasta breathe.
Superior-grade durum wheat semolina pasta, bronze-drawn and slow-dried. Twenty-nine lines, from everyday classics to southern regional shapes, plus pestos and spreads to complete the shelf.
Every line is ordered by the case. Prices reserved for approved buyers, VAT excluded.
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The opening assortment
A short list to open the account with — the lines that carry the range.
