Anagni Panpepato Competition 2024: a dive into the past-future

December arrives and so does the tradition of panpepato, which in Anagni takes on a meaning all its own with the 11th edition of the competition, thanks to the Pro Loco of Anagni and best wishes to the new president Augusto Terilli.

And I am also happy this year to be on the jury to pay homage to the ‘loaves’ that my mother-in-law gave me and to spread the perfect combination between this sweet and Cesanese wine, especially the DOCG Piglio wine.

The panpepato of Anagni, which our ‘bookworm’ Prof. Tommaso Cecilia calls panepapato (bread of the popes) in honor of the city of the popes, is made by adding cooked must of Cesanese red wine and is immediately recognizable by its color and flavor. There is no Anagnino who has not grown up with the scents of must in the house during Christmas.

“Once there was a saying in Anagni that a pope was nicknamed ‘cooked must’. And let's remember that the must is used to make panpepato but also to strengthen the wine. When the fermentation doesn't get off to a good start, a little concentrated cooked must is added" Tommaso Cecilia reminds us, who during the awards ceremony tells some anecdotes and Anagni sayings about local food and wine.

"When I graduated, I wrote a thesis on viticulture in Anagni (and Alta Ciociaria) and this is a blessed territory for wine. Let's remember that according to a local saying 'the fruitiness of the wine is the salime of the earth' and here the salime (composition) is rich".

The nice surprise that just arrived was the art exhibition of Enrico Quattrocchi, a young ninety-year-old painter with unmistakable features and colors. His joy for life is pervasive and the perspective from which he looks at the world is never banal, at times mocking power or the homologation of people.

A bit surrealist in the way he presents reality, a bit pop in his choice of colors, Enrico Quattrocchi took me into his world for an hour and his story was the icing on the cake of the competition. I took a picture of him in front of his large painting Chimerica which he describes in this way: “Chimerica: What will our future be like? Who will trace its paths? What kind of life are we preparing for ourselves? In the orgy of wars, attacks, multinationals, hyperspace travel, high technology, energy crisis, ecological disasters, fundamentalisms and so on, everyone has their own ideas. However, it is certain that in the future there will be two dominant forces at play, China, with its economic boom and its disruptive numerical strength, and America, or rather the USA, which still holds sway. We will see. Here a Chinese-American is the referee”.

Once all the members of the jury have arrived, we begin the tastings while the notes of an accordion fill the crowded room. “This year there are 29 panpepati in the competition,” Guglielmo Vecchi, Anagni city councilor and attentive promoter of all the traditions and peculiarities of his city, reminded us, “and the jury is made up of the 2 pastry chefs, Mauro Giuliani and Danilo Viti, as well as me and Claudia”.

My task was to also talk about Cesanese and guide us to the tasting of some of the wines that Luca Sperati and the Strada del Cesanese had brought. We tasted a young wine from Anagni (Corte dei Papi) from 2023, a fresh one from a couple of young winemakers from Piglio (Colle Gioie) from 2022 and one from Affile from 2019 aged in barrel (Formiconi). We must say that Luca also improvised as a singer of popular music accompanying the accordion and receiving warm applause (I must remember this at the next meeting of the Strada del Cesanese).

This year the public participated with great enthusiasm in the tastings and let themselves be guided in the variety of aromas and scents of the different Cesanesi that had 3 different drinking styles. The victory of the panpepato went to Mrs. Cinzia Sordi, while in second place, in equal merit, were classified Stefania Codeluppi and Angela Maria Calvario, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law who swear they did not exchange the recipe.

Ad majora!