APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES
Marzellina wheat
Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania
In brief
- A spring-sown durum wheat, also called verminia, grown above 500 m in the Apennines of the provinces of Benevento and Avellino. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina)
- San Bartolomeo in Galdo was once its main centre; today only a handful of farmers sow it. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina)
- Its flour, often blended with others, gives bread with a grey crumb and pasta with a strong flavour. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina)
- Marzellina is on Campania's list of traditional products. (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026))
History and origin
Marzellina, also called verminia, is an old durum wheat from the mountains of the Campanian Apennines, between the Sannio and Irpinia. Its distinguishing trait is spring sowing: in fields between 700 and 800 metres it yielded more than autumn-sown wheat, and when bad weather prevented autumn sowing it was the fallback farmers could rely on.
The historic centre of cultivation was San Bartolomeo in Galdo, in the province of Benevento. Until the early twentieth century farmers there devoted about a third of their wheat land to it, around a thousand hectares.
Over time marzellina was displaced by modern, higher-yielding varieties that need large amounts of chemical fertilisers and weedkillers. It has survived thanks to a few farmers who kept sowing it: according to the Slow Food Presidium only five remain, on a few hectares.
Area and method of production
The Presidium area is the Campanian Apennines in the provinces of Benevento and Avellino, above 500 metres. The Campania Region lists marzellina among the durum wheat varieties typical of the cereal-growing areas of Irpinia and the Sannio, alongside Senatore Cappelli and saragolla.
It is a late-sown wheat: it is sown between January and March and harvested between July and August. The plant is hardy, resists lodging well and has strong, well-developed roots, which suit it to mountain soils.
The very fact that it needs little work in the field and is adapted to the environment in which it evolved makes traditional wheat like marzellina a resource for farmers. The Presidium aims at a supply chain that is sustainable environmentally, socially and economically, involving pasta makers and bakers to widen the local chain.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina · Regione Campania — Cappella, Saragolla, Marzellina (prodotti tradizionali)
How to recognise it
In the field marzellina is recognised by its short, white straw, with a stem little more than a metre tall, its compact ear with long awns and its long, pointed grain.
Its flour tends to darken pasta, so it is often blended with flour from other wheats; for bread too it is combined with soft-wheat flours. The resulting bread has a dark amber crust and an intensely grey crumb, with aromas of toast, almond and malt and a sweet, savoury and lingering taste.
The pasta also has complex aromas and an intense, long flavour that sets it apart from pasta made with more common wheat.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina · Regione Campania — Cappella, Saragolla, Marzellina (prodotti tradizionali)
In the kitchen
Marzellina is above all a pasta wheat: the Campania Region names pasta making as its main use, and its flour is particularly suited to dried pasta. In the dough it is often combined with other durum flours to soften its dark colour.
In bread it is blended with soft-wheat flours and gives loaves with a grey crumb and toasted aromas, which the Presidium describes as complex and lingering. Bread and pasta are available all year round.
Involving pasta makers and bakers is part of the Presidium's project: it is through their work that marzellina reaches the table, in the simplest forms of home cooking.
Sources: Regione Campania — Cappella, Saragolla, Marzellina (prodotti tradizionali) · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina
Where to taste it
Marzellina belongs to the Apennine villages between the Sannio and Irpinia, above 500 metres: first of all San Bartolomeo in Galdo, in the province of Benevento, once its main centre. It is a landscape of wheat fields and high hills, best crossed at a gentle pace.
Production is tiny, in the hands of a few farmers; the Slow Food Presidium page lists the farms that grow it, in the provinces of Benevento and Avellino. Rather than the grain itself, look for bread and pasta made from its flour, available all year round.
Summer, between July and August, is harvest time, when the marzellina fields ripen.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina · Regione Campania — Cappella, Saragolla, Marzellina (prodotti tradizionali)
Protection
- Slow Food Presidium — grano-marzellina (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Grano Marzellina)
- Traditional agri-food product (PAT) — Campania, n. 275, 26th revision (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026))
When
- The sources consulted give no months.