Truffle Hunting in Tuscany!

On our recent trip to Italy we wanted to try some unique culinary experiences. We’ve been wine tasting, cooking classes and food pairings. So it only made sense to combine learning more about the land that we were visiting, along with some culinary customs. We came up with a plan to learn more about truffles by participating in a truffle hunt!

The grove of trees below is where truffles are actually planted and cultivated. We’ve seen many groves such as this in our travels through Italy and now we knew that they could quite possibly be truffle groves.

In France pigs are used to hunt truffles. In Italy they use dogs for two reasons; they are more easily trainable and they won’t eat the truffles like the pigs do! These adorable three are all a type of a poodle, a dog that can be a very successful hunter. The oldest dog (in the forefront) was 8 years old and a well established hunter. The other two were 2-years-old and an 8-month-old, who was still training. They were so happy to see us all!

Our guide, who owned the dogs, has been truffle hunting for 40 years, so he was highly experienced. He had a wife, kids and grandkids and teased us that the dogs loved him more than the rest of his family!

He showed us how the dog finds the truffle and then he takes a special tool to finish delicately digging it out of the ground. This grove was owned by the winery we were visiting and they had planted 3 different types of truffles here.

Are our noses, as good as the dogs? Not really, but once you got the truffle out of the dirt, you could smell that delicious earthy smell.

Now that we were shown how to hunt, it was our turn. Once the dog found another truffle, it was Steve’s turn to gently dig it out.

When the dogs find a truffle they are rewarded with a treat. Steve got a treat for his find too!

Now it was our friend Cheryl’s turn. She was a trooper hunting truffles with a broken arm.

And she was successful too! (check out that big smile)

We learned that truffles can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the size. Our guide personally found a truffle once that sold for $7,000 USD! White truffles are even more rare and are only in season September - December. We were cautioned that if any restaurant offers a white truffle outside of that time frame, it’s probably not an authentic white truffle.

Overall we were successful as a group, everyone finding at least one truffle. I would highly recommend trying a truffle hunt. It was a little more than a mile walk, not too strenuous. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun.

Since we were are at winery, now it was time to taste some wine. We chose Tenuta Torciano Winery for our experience. They have some terrific packages that are reasonably priced, no matter what you are looking for. Our package was a truffle hunt and private wine tasting with lunch. We started off with this beautiful charcuterie plate. The balsamic on the cheese, as well as the olive oil is their own brand. They were delicious.

Next, we had lasagne with truffles. It was the most delicious lasagne I’ve ever tasted. It was a family recipe. No store bought ricotta or cottage cheese in this. It was made with a creamy béchamel sauce and lots of fresh mozzarella.

Our host, Leonardo, was the nephew of the winemaker. He was so knowledgeable about every wine and offered us any wine, including library wines, for tasting. They were all beautifully made wines. We tend to favor the big bold Super Tuscans so we tried several of theirs.

The winery can be found: HERE

It was clouding over, for what would become a pretty big afternoon storm. We took one last walk through the grounds and vineyards of Tenuta Torciano.

Time to say goodbye to Torciano and our first ever truffle hunting experience! It was a bucket list day for all of us.