And it is from these premises that the 360 GRANI event came to life, created to share with customers this philosophy through which the Mill approaches the study of individual wheat varieties: the raw material at the center, then everything else. Of each wheat variety, the vegetative cycle, ear height, wheat hardness, ideal soil and microclimate, and cultivation techniques are studied. It is perhaps the company’s most curious project, Monocultivar, the search for sensory characteristics that distinguish one variety from another, just as happens in the world of wine or oil, but with a few more differences: soft wheat, in fact, “does not have such obvious peculiarities, but there are differences, instead – that’s for sure- and with a lot of sensitivity, you can learn to recognize them,” explains Danny Mariani, a young miller in love with the wheat fields, who dedicates his life to research and development in the fields. It is a landscape made of chromatic shades, contrasts, green expanses surrounded by rolling hills that surround the many ears of corn.

Similar on the surface, very different to a discerning eye: there are wheats with longer whiskers, varieties with a beautiful color that turns to aquamarine tones, more or less low-slung ears. There is Alpha, the wheat of Crunchiness, developed in Italy in the 1950s by crossing Gentil Rosso with some grains invented by Strampelli, “and how much there would be to tell about him…, ” adds Giuliano Pediconi, a master baker who has worked with the company for several years, always at Danny’s side when it comes to research, so passionate that he recalls the old millers’ method of tasting the grains of wheat: chewing them with the tips of the teeth in front of them, so as to perceive their hints but also their protein strength, “based on the amount and consistency of dough that forms on tasting.” And there is Beta, the Wheat of Meltiness, Gamma, the Indefinite Wholemeal with the flavor of wheat and dried fruit, Omega, or the Wheat of Panettone, perfect for our great world-famous yeast, and then Zeta, the Wheat of Sourdough, able to highlight all the aromatic complexity of yeast. To each its soil, its sowing and ripening period, its characteristics and its milling technique, “we cannot treat two wheats with different characteristics in the same way, otherwise we would lose all the organoleptic properties that distinguish them,” explains the miller. A very precise work that begins in the experimental fields and ends up in the Mill and then moves to the table, thanks to Giuliano’s hands and knowledge, which valorize the best out of each flour.