The recipe for the sauce has never been written down. The family pact requires that it be handed down to the eldest son only orally, like a legend.

Massimo Rizzoli is the only one who knows the doses and cooking times. Those who prepare it in the company still receive the ingredients that will go towards making it already weighed with a combination of metal ingots designed by the first Rizzoli. Their exact weight is known only to the President. The doses and proportions have remained unchanged since then.

The spices that make up the liquid part of the sauce are an extraordinary and very modern mix of aromas, countries and cultures.

It would be more practical and cheaper to buy them in powder form, but at Rizzoli they still grind them from fresh as they used to. Even the suppliers haven’t changed: during the Second World War, one of them was forced to stop sending because trade was blocked. Sauce production also stopped in Parma.

The rooms that house the production of the sauce are closed, separated from the rest of the factory and kept secret.

Only a trusted person has access to such rooms and only he or she is called upon to perform this recipe, which is so rich in history and tradition. It takes skill and mutual trust.
To achieve such an artisanal product, the cooking method is unchanged: it is still the same copper pot over a very slow fire, for hours on end.
The sauce is prepared only a few times a year: when it happens, the scent pervades the whole company.

Only time allows us to achieve the same taste, the soft and full-bodied texture as in the past.

Once prepared, the sauce is left to mature for six months in numbered wooden barrels housed in a dedicated room.
These are the barrels that previously contained Marsala and whose wooden staves still smell of the liqueur wine they stored.
This is the only way to obtain an inimitable product.

“There was already everything needed to bring a legend to the table.”

Massimo Rizzoli