Pope Benedict, born in Germany, liked only sweet wine. In contrast, Pope Francis would taste a little of whatever the sommelier recommended. But for breakfast, he liked to have toast with jam made from Sagrantino wine grapes.

These revelations come from Carlo Attisano, the sommelier on the papal flights for both of the previous Popes.

Attisano, who was also the food and beverage manager for the now-defunct airline Alitalia, shared some stories about serving wine to the Popes during a visit to Cesarini Sartori, a winery in Umbria that makes a sweet wine (Cesarini Sartori Semèle Montefalco Sagrantino Passito) that he said has been available on papal flights for years.

Pope Benedict drank German beer, Fanta orange soda and passito, sweet wine made from dried grapes. Attisano said he tasted passito wines from all over Italy to find the right one for Pope Benedict. Many are made from white grapes, but Attisano liked the Umbrian red-grape-based passito, which has less residual sugar than most, because he thought it paired better with a wide variety of foods. Pope Benedict must have agreed because he stuck with what he liked.

You couldn't ask for more contrasting personalities than conservative Pope Benedict and liberal Pope Francis. This also played out in their food and drink choices.

The official papal plane usually carries 70 to 80 journalists in the back. Attisano said Pope Francis insisted that he be served the same meal as whatever the last journalist to be served got. (As a journalist, I like this a lot.)

Also, "Pope Francis tasted a little bit of everything I had on board," Attisano said. "My impression is that he did it out of respect for my job."

Attisano said he created a small area on the plane for Pope Francis to pray, and put a gold cross on the wall. Pope Francis was unhappy; he asked Attisano to go out in the woods, find two sticks, and make a simple wooden cross instead.

I like to stump people with this question: which nation drinks the most wine per capita? The answer is Vatican City, an independent nation within Rome, which "imports" 96 percent of its wine from Italy. In 2019, its average annual per capita consumption was 79 liters per year, 50 percent more than second-placed Portugal. There are several reasons for this: Vatican City's population is entirely adults, and sacramental wine is an important part of religious services that are performed daily.

Beyond that, Pope Francis told a group of Italian winemakers in 2024: “Wine, land, agricultural skills and entrepreneurialism are gifts from God – the creator has entrusted them to us because, with our sensitivity and honesty, we make them a true source of joy." And in 2016, according to The Guardian, he also said: "A wedding party [with] no wine makes the newlyweds ashamed. Imagine you finish the wedding party drinking tea?"

Popes and wine: the perfect pairing

In the 1200s, Pope Martin IV was the last French pope to hold court in Rome before the papacy moved to Avignon, France. Martin IV was an infamous glutton who Dante placed in purgatory, recounting the pope's love for eels boiled in Vernaccia wine.

Pope Clement VI, who gave Châteauneuf-du-Pape its name, liked to host feasts where he was the only one allowed to have a knife, in case a fight broke out.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Pope Leo XIII was famous for his asceticism, subsisting mostly on soup and bread, but he made space for a glass of Bordeaux with dinner.

A shocking deviation from the wine-drinking norm came from Pope Paul VI; People magazine reported in 1974 that he liked to "unwind in the evening with a light Scotch and soda". Paul VI wasn't an apostate though; he did have wine with lunch.

As for the new White Sox-fan Pope Leo XIV, he is reportedly an adventurous eater with a taste for Peruvian food, especially ceviche and stewed goat, after his long service there. There are photos of Leo XIV enjoying a beer, and a former papal employee told the German newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that the new pope likes a glass of good red wine. That said, the passito Attisano chose will likely still be on the plane.

I may have helped Leo XIV feel at home on the papal plane because I introduced Attisano to the concept of the Chicago hot dog, with its unique dressings of bright green sweet pickle relish, mustard, onions, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and a shake of celery salt. It's not the easiest wine pairing, but Attisano is deputy chairman of the Italian Sommelier Foundation so he can work it out.

Unfortunately, if you want to drink like a Pope, you'll have to head to Italy. Though Cesarini Sartori exports half of its annual 25,000-case production, it doesn't send any passito to the United States. No wonder, perhaps, because the Vatican is a thirsty client.

Here's a final irony. Attisano poured tastes of this passito wine for visiting journalists, including myself, but I was pestering him with so many questions about papal drinking preferences that he didn't take the trouble to taste it. The bottle he poured for us was corked. I couldn't help thinking that Benedict would have turned up his nose at it, but Pope Francis would have drunk it anyway, without complaint. Different popes, different styles.