1 Million Amazing Reasons to go Truffle Hunting in Tuscany

There may not be exactly 1 million reasons to go truffle hunting, but this was one of the best experiences we had while visiting Tuscany.

Truffles are on every menu in Italy. So it seems there is no shortage of supply of truffles.

However, when you look at the price tag for the raw materials, they are priced like gold! White truffles can cost up to $5000 a KG!

Why are they priced so highly? That’s what we decided to find out.

We love truffles and truffle hunting is something we have been dying to do since our friend Jen from Australia told us about her experience.

Also, we just happened to be moseying around Italy, the proclaimed truffle capital of the world!

We stumbled across the option to truffle hunt + wine taste at Tenuta Torciano, so we instantly made an appointment. They have tons of options, so have a look through their options to see if there is something else you’re keen on.

When visiting anywhere in Italy, arrival can be a bit tricky, especially with parking, so plan ahead and make sure you have extra time.

When arriving there are two entrances, one is blocked off, making it obvious to park in the other entrance.

The parking is very limited (maybe 6 spots) so unless you hired a helicopter (there were also two grass helipads) then you might be better off arranging a parking space before arrival.

We were lucky to get the last spot where we noticed an electric car plugin which could be handy for the lucky Tesla folks out there. We arrived early, but started right away with a quick overview of the property and grapes.

During this tour, you get to start by learning about the winery, the company, and their grapes. Best of all you get to try some grapes if you are there at the right time! – late August, early September.

It was the first week of September for us, so the grapes were ready to harvest, full and tasty.

While we were gorging ourselves on the delicious grapes, we met a cute family of geese. They didn’t love us grabbing grapes near them but we couldn’t resist getting a closer look.

After the introduction, you will get to meet the local certified Truffle expert, Morano. Yes, they even have Truffle licenses in Italy, it’s big business!

Morano only speaks Italian, so the lady (I’m terrible and missed her name) taking care of our introduction also stayed to translate for us. She was excellent taking her time to explain everything Morano was saying, so you don’t need to worry about getting lost in translation 🙂

Morano will lead you through the beautiful oak trees and take you through an introduction on everything truffles.

It’s super interesting, plus he is very relaxed and happy to answer any questions you might have.

Here are the truffle notes I took down if you’re curious, but feel free to skip ahead to where things get really good 😀

Truffle Hunting notes:

Black truffles are only a few centimeters underground where animals can smell them
They have a few different varieties of black truffles on the property, which are ready to harvest at different times of the year, giving them truffles all year round.
Truffles don’t give off the scent until they are ready to be eaten. This is part of their reproductive strategy as truffles are only able to spread through animal droppings. Thus they are only ready to eat once the dogs, pigs, squirrels, voles, or chipmunks can smell them
The price for black truffles can range from $600-$1200 a KG.
The average tree can produce truffles for 30 years.
The truffles work with the tree in a symbiosis relationship. The truffles can only survive from sugar provided by the tree through their root system. In return, the truffles give off other beneficial nutrients for the trees.
This is normal for a lot of trees, they need organisms like truffles to provide nutrients. The reason truffles aren’t everywhere is that they are not the most enduring organisms.
Tree roots that are inoculated with truffle spores can start producing truffles after only a few years apparently. However, I’ve seen conflicting reviews on this where others are saying up to 10 years, so I do not know for sure. This tour mentioned 3 years when I asked. It most likely depends on the tree type.
Each tree can give off about 5KG of truffles a year.
Truffles need specific trees like hazelnut, oak trees or a few other species will work

White Truffle Hunting notes:

White truffles are only found in Italy (apparently, but I had some with my eggs in Bondi Beach, so I’m not sure if this is true or if they were imported)
White truffles can pay around $5000 a KG
White truffles are extremely rare and have not been cultivated. Not sure why we have not figured them out yet
White truffles need to be in very damp soil, but the soil should not be flooded. The soil needs to be wet, but well-drained, usually found near a river
When white truffle hunting, Morano goes out at 4 am with flashlights on his head and on the dogs.
He leaves at 4am for two reasons:
1. They are easier to smell for the dogs this early
2. You have to beat the other hunters to them!
White truffles are usually a meter underground, so he has to dig for them and be careful not to damage them. The dogs will only dig a little bit as they usually expect the truffles to be very close to the surface. Then he will dig deeper to try and find the white truffles
If Morano damages them at all when digging them up then the value will go down quickly as it might impact the flavour and of course the aesthetics always add value (nobody likes a bruised apple)

Truffle Hunting Dogs

After the knowledge portion, you finally get to go out back to meet the pups! <3

As soon as we got out back, we could see the little truffle hunters were excited to get hunting and immediately jumped on us to say hi.

Don’t worry if you’re a little nervous around dogs. You’ll give them some treats and instantly be best friends 🙂

These two rascals are part of the most common truffle hunting breed, the Lagotto Romagnolo breed. Certain dogs have slightly better noses and can smell truffles better than others, but most dogs can be trained to find truffles.

Pigs are usually what you think of for hunting truffles and of course, have always been great for “finding” truffles.

However, in Italy, they are no longer allowed for truffle hunting because they sometimes destroy the root system of the tree. Not to mention they occasionally eat the truffles

If you want to get in on the truffle action then the best part is you’ll need a dog 🙂

Truffle hunting dogs are introduced to the truffle scent from birth. When taking milk from their mother, the mother will have some truffle scent added to the milk to introduce the pup to the scent immediately. Seems kind of weird, but it does sound effective. What do you think?

After that it’s the usual hide and seek training with truffle scented toys.

Morano’s two dogs are 8 years old and 2 years old. If you get to meet them, you’ll quickly notice that the younger one is full of energy. The older one seems happy to just be out and was slightly tamer, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a good hunter.

In fact, as soon as we started, the older one found a truffle!

It was lightning quick that even Morano didn’t realize what had happened. He thought the older one just wanted more treats when she came running to him.

The truffle was in perfect condition and after more hunting, we saw they are both great at handling them with care.

The younger one was a quick hunter, but not the most accurate running from tree to tree searching for them and even digging for a few false alarms.

Luckily this is a “truffle farm”, so if you decide to make the trip you won’t be disappointed with your hunt. Every hunt comes up with truffles 🙂

We ended up finding almost 10!

After finishing up, you have to say your goodbyes to the little helpers with some well-earned treats, and then take the spoils back to the kitchen for a classic Italian cooking class.

Truffle Cooking

This was my favourite part of the day and the whole day was pretty awesome.

On our way to the kitchen, we went through what looks like a small banquet room with barrels stacked along the walls – very nice!

If you’re lucky you’ll get to work with Antonio. He is a blast, full of energy and smiles.

To get started he poured us the wineries classic white wine, which was excellent (we took 2 bottles home), it was the perfect refreshment after being out in the heat at midday.

We started with prepping our pasta, to make it from scratch! Here are the steps in case you want to try at home.

Homemade Pasta Prep

You start with 50grams of one flour and another 50 grams of another flour (need to look this up in the video or ask Antonio)
The trick here is to add slightly less than 100 grams so you can always add more later depending on the size of your egg.
1. ie) if you have a smaller egg, then your okay because you already added less than the recipe asks
Next, you mix the flour so that it becomes a consistent flour
Now make a “talking hand” gesture with your hand and use that to create an empty circle in the middle of the flour pushing all the flour to form a circular perimeter
Crack an egg into this empty circle you created
Take a fork and mix the egg whites and yolk until its a consistent substance
Now start mixing it slowly with the flour perimeter
Slowly mix it in with the flour until it is all mixed forming a paste-like substance
Take a pinch of flour and pull any excess off of the fork (the flour will make it easy to pull the residual off the fork)
From here you can move out of the bowl and onto the countertop (dump the contents onto the counter)
Next, we want to work in this paste to be a more consistent substance
1. **Note that you should not force it by stretching the pasta, as this will create air pockets or something, so just be smooth and really work it in
If it’s sticking to your hand then take some flour and rain it around the pasta blob, covering the table surface as well so the rest of the blog can pick it up as you work it
Keep working the blob until its one smooth round blob, add flour as needed, the blob shouldn’t be sticky, so add flour if too sticky
Now put a pause on the pasta so you can prep the rest of the meal by taking some plastic wrap and wrapping the pasta blob

Potato-Truffle Soup Appetizer

Ana peeled and diced potatoes, placing the diced potatoes into water (Antonio said this is essential because the potatoes will start to brown very quickly if not put into water).

Meanwhile, I perfected my chopping skills on a leek.

First-time leek cutter here, so I was a bit lost, I think Antonio cut the top off and then we used the rest of it.

Anyways, I split the leek in half, vertically, so now I had two long pieces and next, I made small slices along both long pieces, making nice small pieces for the soup.

After this, I diced a few sage leaves. So what you need is:

Peeled and cubed potatoes
Diced leek
Finely diced sage

Truffle Bruschetta

After pasta prep, we were starting to get hungry so Antonio prepped us an easy truffle bruschetta snack which was delicious and simple to make.

What to do:

Toasted some bread
Butter it, add heaps of sliced truffle and that’s it!

It was truly a snack for royalty considering how much those truffles go for!

But it was grand, so well worth it.

The reason it worked is that Truffle has a very gentle flavor, so you need to make meals that won’t mask the taste and waste the flavour, thus toast is a perfect option 🙂

We made another version of this later on during cooking which included beans and garlic cooked in olive oil for 7 minutes, plus heaps of truffle shavings on top, perfetto!

Finishing off the Truffle Soup

Add plenty of olive oil to a cooking pot for soup and put the heat on medium
After a few minutes when the oil is hot, add the chopped leek and sage
Move the heat to low for these to cook for 10 minutes
Next, you can add the potatoes
Last you’ll want to add water until everything is covered and now we can prep dessert!

Take 2 eggs and split up the egg whites and yolks into two bowls
Next, add two tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites
Then us a beater to beat up the egg whites

Tiramisu Dessert

I did big circles, quickly, the quicker the better apparently, mixing it up until its fluffy. The result of this is actually a “meringue”, so that’s cool if you’re into lemon meringue pies.

Next add 200 grams of mascarpone (it looks like a Philadelphia cheese package, maybe a little bigger) to the egg yolks and beat them up too.
Now you can merge the two bowls together using a spatula to gently flip them
1. if you move through the middle or beat the mixture aggressively then you may ruin the meringue back into a liquid form again
2. So the technique was to tip the bowl towards you and with the spatula, scrape along the edge of the bowl, under the substance and flip it back on top of itself, and just keep doing this to mix it up gently (if this makes any sense lol)
Take another bowl and add 12 biscotti pieces (half a finger-sized)
Next, pour dessert wine or expresso over these pieces until they are all soaking in the liquid
Leave these for 3-4 minutes, maybe less, so that they don’t become too soft, but just right and soak in enough.
Take two glasses and then layer the meringue and the biscotti pieces
1. ex: a layer of meringue, then two little biscotti’s, then another layer of meringue, and so on until the glasses are full
Last, add some cocoa powder on top and then straight into the fridge to chill and wait for serving

**Note you can only let these sit for a day, 30 hours max

Finish the Homemade Pasta

Unwrap your pasta blobs, add a bit of flour and then take a roller and stretch them out a bit, until they are slightly bigger than your hand
Next, you’ll need a pasta squishing machine. You feed them into the pasta squisher thingy, which has different thickness settings
First, you start at zero, feed the pasta slab through, making sure to keep the pasta draped evenly over your hand, so it hangs off both sides (note it barely hangs on the first go, since it’s not that stretched yet)
1. As you feed it through don’t give it much slack, let it stretch a bit

Feed it through on zero, then you slide it out and pick it up quickly, draping it evenly over your hand as quick as possible so it doesn’t have time to stick to itself
Feed it through up to and including level 5, at which point it should appear to be roughly 3-4 feet long

Now spread it across the table, and add more flour. Don’t be shy, add plenty of flour to cover the full pasta slab (it should look like a nice dusting of snow)
As per Antonio’s instructions, you and your partner can grab both sides of the pasta, look each other in the eye and fold it towards the center without looking down at the pasta
1. Ana and I tried this out and did well, but of course, when Antonio and I did it we met perfectly in the center – maybe in another life … don’t tell his newlywed wife! 😉
Keep folding it to the center keeping roughly millimeter between the two folds
Fold until it makes sense to stop, where it would be difficult to fold again

At this point, each folded section should be 3 fingers wide with that millimeter gap between each
Now take a knife and cut centimeter wide cuts along the pasta block
1. Don’t slide each piece out, keep the pasta together, and make clean cuts! Cutting perpendicular to the millimeter gap you created in the middle
Once the full pasta block is cut into these pieces, keep it together and grab a giant toothpick stick thingy
Slide this thingy underneath the bottom layer, right underneath the millimeter gap you created
Slide it all the way through so that the pasta block is right in the middle of the stick
Grab both sides of the stick and really quickly, and gently shake it out so that it doesn’t fly off everywhere (like I did) and now you will see your beautiful pasta hanging off the stick!

Grab a pan and lay the pasta down in the pan together, using the big toothpick thing to swing the pasta onto the pan and drape it down into it

We did this above process for each of our 3 paste blobs blocks, layering each one on top of each other in this pan

Antonio then took this pan to cook and we started cleaning up for our wine tasting.

The only thing I forgot to mention was the incident when cooking the beans and garlic for the bruschetta.

We had some fun perfecting the pan wave technique and I ended up sending beans, garlic, and hot olive oil across the kitchen!

^^Look how scared he is 😂😂

It wasn’t bad, but I gave Antonio a nice scare 😉 It didn’t hit anyone except my shoe, so it was all laughs and no tears luckily.

We said our goodbyes to Antonio and went off to the wine tasting

Wine Tasting

You’ll notice the wine tasting area has a nice patio with flowers, grass, fountains, and even has bocce ball nearby. (somehow I did not get any pictures of this…)

This is a portion of the outdoor area. The picture is from here

Here we joined two other couples who were already into their meals and wine tasting. If you do this tasting too, you’ll notice they put out 7 glasses for you. Not too shabby!

Sadly I needed to sip slow and small as I was the driver on this fine day.

The gentlemen serving us was excellent, maybe a bit too comfortable with his job and maybe a little too chatty (I couldn’t even finish writing down my wine reviews!)

Overall though he was did a great job, making sure we had our food and wines just right.

We had a bruschetta plate first, then our potato soup came, followed by our truffle pasta and then of course our tiramisu. The food was melt-in-your-mouth amazing! Somehow Antonio made chefs out of us.

This worked perfectly for me since I was focused on the food, leaving the wine for Ana, but I still enjoyed having a sip of each wine.

The white, chianti classico, and the last two on the tasting list were all excellent. My final wine reviews can be found here 🙂

We finished off with a tour of the estate where we saw more of the vineyards and a huge vegetable garden nearby used for the restaurant.

That’s it for this truffle hunting and wine tasting experience. If you have any questions or need advice when visiting Tuscany hit me up in the comments 🙂