Do you need excellent ingredients to make an excellent panettone?

Having worked in this sector for many years, I am constantly surprised when I hear comments like: “Wow, that panettone is made with Afghan goat’s milk! Fantastic: that other panettone is baked in a wood fired oven! Incredible: there was a marmot that was wrapping the chocolate!”
Let’s clear up some myths: Afghan goats are better for making waistcoats, not producing milk. Have you ever tasted their milk? If you ever get the chance to do so, you will understand why!
So what about that wood fired oven?
A panettone baked in a wood fired oven will certainly have that smell of burned wood, but is that really the taste we want? Without considering the cost: the price would be very high – a wood fired oven can only cook very few at a time – and the baking wouldn’t be even, as well as quite a lot of ash. Also, given the poor baking uniformity, such a panettone would not keep for very long at all.
Regarding marmots….I’d really love to believe that they wrap chocolate! If it is true that marketing is based on what really can happen, then let’s allow our imagination to take flight!

All this, however, has created a lot of confusion and many people have bought cakes and desserts that are not always as good as they promise on the label. It is not necessarily true that if an ingredient comes from far away then it is the best, as it is not true that old methods of production are necessarily more authentic than modern ones. I believe, however, that the geographic location of  ingredients and the technology used for processing them should not be taken for granted and imposed, but instead are consequences and the result of an explicit choice based on quality.
In my opinion, the following rule applies:

With excellent ingredients you can produce a bad Panettone
With terrible ingredients you will definitely produce a bad Panettone

In order to honour this transparency I have decided to tell you in detail the ingredients we use, and the reasons for those choices.