Deep in the woods of Italy’s northwestern Piedmont region, the search for the white alba truffle continues, with excited dogs digging in the crooked, wet earth.
But due to climate change, culinary treasures are becoming increasingly rare.
“Go find it! Where is it?” Carlo Marenda, a part-time truffle hunter, calls Gigi and Book, a seven-month-old and 13-year-old cross of the Spinone Italiano and Lagotto Romagnolo breeds, prized for their keen sense of smell.
Autumn leaves crunching under the weight of shoes sinking into the muddy soil. A picturesque hill below a vineyard, not far from Alba, winds along the Rio Della Fava, crossing moist ground, ideal for growing truffles.
Loved by gourmets and celebrity chefs around the world, the white truffle of Alba, one of the most coveted in the world, is an underground fungus growing in symbiosis with certain hardwood trees by attaching to their roots.
Its intense and refined smell, a mixture of grass, garlic and honey, allows hunting dogs to detect it, even if the truffle is sometimes buried to a depth of one metre.
Carlo Marenda, 42, who was introduced to truffle hunting by a family friend at the age of five, founded the “Save the Truffle” association in 2015 together with natural sciences researcher Edmundo Bonelli.
It was an octogenarian “trifulau” bachelor, Giuseppe Giammesio, better known as “Nottu” and the last descendant of a family with a century-old truffle tradition, who revealed his secrets just before his death in 2014 and Inherited his dogs.
The Master’s message was a testament: “If we want to stop the extinction of the truffle, we must protect the forests, stop polluting waterways and plant new ‘truffle’ trees”.
Ten years later, thanks to donations and the support of some wine producers, the association has planted more than 700 such trees, including poplar, oak and linden, in the mountainous Langhe region.
Notu’s legacy
“Notu told me about his passion for truffle hunting and tree conservation,” said Marenda, emerging from his metallic gray Fiat Panda 4X4, the favorite car of truffle hunters.
Over the past three decades, the areas devoted to white truffles in Italy have declined by 30 percent, gradually giving way to more profitable vineyards as well as hazelnut groves.
The Langhe hills provide large quantities of hazelnuts to the chocolate giant Ferrero, which was founded in 1946 in Alba, a small prosperous town of 30,000 inhabitants.
But the main threat to the white truffle, whose crop was classified as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2021, is climate change.
Global warming, drought, deforestation and sudden temperature changes are all factors weakening the natural habitat of this fungus.
Truffles need cold and moisture to survive. However, the temperature in early November was 20 °C (68 °F).
“With the summer season getting longer, production is definitely falling,” he lamented.
rising prices
The harvest, which runs from October to the end of January, is decreasing. And because of the cold and the delay in snow arrival, “the aroma of the truffles is still not 100 percent and they don’t last so long,” Marenda said.
He said, as has been seen in recent weeks, heavy rains can also be harmful.
“If there is too little water, the truffle does not develop. If there is too much, it rots.”
Alerted by Book, Marenda bent down to the ground, delicately scratched the earth with a narrow spade, and pulled out a truffle, albeit modest in size.
On whether the white truffle is on the verge of extinction, experts say it is not too late.
“Not yet. But if we don’t act, it could happen,” said Mario Aprile, president of the Piedmont Truffle Hunters Association.
April said, “Unlike black, white truffles cannot be cultivated. Without trees, there would be no truffles. We plant them to rebuild biodiversity.”
Facing limited supply and rising demand, white truffles are trading at high prices this year, reaching 4,500 euros per kilo at the International Alba White Truffle Fair, which ends on December 8.
Two “twin” white truffles, tied to the same root and dug up by April, were the stars of the annual world charity auction for white truffles in Alba on Sunday.
The fungus, which weighed a total of 905 grams (2 pounds), was sold to a Hong Kong finance tycoon for 140,000 euros ($150,000).
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
