Joanna Simon on the history and preparation of zelten—and the best wines to pair with the once-a-year fruit, nuts, and spice-based cake.
The Italians make the rest of the world look like slouches when it comes to traditional Christmas cakes. I am not talking about quantity. I don’t know which country buys, makes at home, or consumes most per capita. I’m referring to the number of regions in Italy that cherish a tradition of a particular cake, often made at home during Advent ready to eat over the Christmas period.
Other countries tend to have one famous Christmas cake, most containing some permutation of dried fruit, nuts, candied peel, and spices; among them, Germany’s stollen, Portugal’s bolo rei, and Britain’s dense (sometimes leaden) fruit cake coated in marzipan and royal icing, which, eaten at teatime, may well be following the similarly flavored Christmas pudding (or plum pudding) served earlier in the day. France admittedly ploughs a more individual furrow with bûche de noël, a chocolate-flavored yule log, followed at epiphany by galette des rois, a flat, frangipane-filled puff pastry pie.
Most of Italy’s regional Christmas cakes also depend on fruit (dried, candied, and fresh peels), nuts, and spices for much of their flavor. Two notable exceptions are the star-shaped, sugar-dusted pandoro from Verona and Piedmont’s tronchetto di natale (which is similar to bûche de noël and may have been a recipe brought from France). But after that it’s fruit, nuts, spices more or less all the way from north to south: from panettone, originally from Milan, to Trentino-Alto Adige’s zelten, to Bologna’s certosino, Genoa’s pandolce, Siena’s panforte, and the spicier panpepato from which panforte (or panforte Margherita) is derived, to the frustingolo of the Marche, Rome’s piangiallo, which takes its name (yellowbread) from its saffron glaze, to Sicily’s bucellatto.
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Zelten is not the earliest, most well documented, or best known of these cakes. The prototype of panpepato and panforte can be dated to 1205 in the Montecelso convent, near Siena, while the first evidence of zelten is not until the 18th century, in a manuscript now in the Civic Library of Rovereto in Trentino, which describes a cake very like today’s zelten called celteno.
But anything zelten may lack in fame or history it makes up for in seasonality and the dedication with which it is prepared throughout Trentino-Alto Adige from October onwards, but mostly in December, for eating sometime over the Christmas period.
Precisely when it was made and eaten originally is not known. One tradition maintains that it was prepared on December 13, the Feast of Saint Lucia, and was eaten on Christmas Day when families returned from midnight mass. Another says that it was prepared on December 21, the feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle (until it was moved to July 3 in 1969), ready to be eaten on Epiphany, January 6.
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But why these two saints isn’t clear. Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr who died in Syracuse, Sicily in 304 and came to be thought of as the patron saint of sight (and is the patron saint of Syracuse). Saint Thomas is the apostle who became known as Doubting Thomas. The one point on which there is consensus is that the name comes from the German word selten, meaning seldom or rarely, because zelten is only made once a year.
Inevitably a recipe that has passed down through families for centuries is made across a large and varied territory and has a long list of ingredients comes with many adaptations, according to taste and what was available. The zelten of Bolzano in the Alto Adige (Sud Tirol) is traditionally richer in fruit than the recipes of Trentino, where less fruit is grown, and Trentino zelten is usually round, whereas in Alto Adige they are sometimes oval, heart-shaped or oblong.
The main difference in preparation, although it doesn’t have as significant an effect on flavor as one might expect, is whether yeast is used or if eggs, butter, and baking powder take its place. The principal flour is wheat, but a smaller proportion of rye flour is often included. The dried fruit is usually led by figs, followed by raisins, sultanas, and sometimes dates or apricots, and these, together with the candied orange and lemon peels and the fresh orange and lemon zest, are soaked in either rum with white wine or water or in grappa. Grappa is less common, but I prefer it, in particular Trentino Grappa di Moscato.
The nuts are usually led by walnuts, followed by hazelnuts and almonds and sometimes pine nuts. The spices are a moveable feast, but most recipes suggest clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, fennel seed or star anise, and allspice. I have also seen cumin in an Alto Adige recipe and ginger in one from Trentino. Honey is another key ingredient. Almonds and glacé (candied) cherries are widely used to decorate the cake.
The best wines to pair with zelten
When recipes vary so much and the resulting cakes range from relatively pale, lightly fruited, and spiced, to darker, sweeter, more intensely fruity, nutty, and spicy, it doesn’t pay to be too prescriptive about accompanying wine but, encouragingly, quite a spread of sweet wine styles go well with fruit, nut, and spice cakes of this sort.
Both the main local possibilities, Moscato Giallo Passito and Trentino Vin Santo, usually make good pairings. For a zelten that leans slightly to the panettone end of the spectrum, I would veer towards a Passito. For one that edges a little more towards the panforte end, I would try a Vin Santo, which could be Tuscan, such as Crociani Vin Santo di Montepulciano.
Passito wines tend to work well, particularly Moscato di Pantelleria. Donnafugata’s superb Ben Ryé is multilayered but elegant enough to match even relatively lighter zelten. Late-harvest Muscat/Moscato can also be very good, especially Klein Constantia Vin de Constance, any vintage from 2007–2020, and Chivite Colección 125 Vendimia Tardía Blanco, 2020, 2019, or an older vintage (this is a Moscato that ages well).
Another wine that can be exceptionally good with zelten, or at least with the recipe I follow—which I would describe as occupying the middle ground, but a little less sweet and a little spicier than some—is Tokaji Aszú. I find 5 puttonyos sweet enough, but with a sweeter zelten I would move up to 6 puttonyos. Either way, I would be delighted to have Royal Tokaji, Disznókő, or Patricius in my glass.
And in case anyone thinks I have forgotten them, a final word on sweet fortified wines. While Madeira and Marsala can be very good with dark, dense fruit cakes, I find them too heavy for zelten, but the nuttiness of Tawny Port strikes a chord—a Quinta do Noval Colheita or 10 Year Old Tawny by choice.
