Tuscany Truffle Hunting

You meet a hunter, a tartufaio, and one or two dogs, usually Lagotto Romagnolo, at the edge of a wood. The hunt itself lasts sixty to ninety minutes: the dog quarters the ground, freezes, digs, and the hunter finishes the excavation by hand with a small spade so the mycelium is not destroyed. Then a tasting or a full lunch, with the truffle shaved over eggs, crostini or tagliatelle.

The main areas are San Miniato, between Florence and Pisa, which is the centre of the Tuscan white truffle; the Crete Senesi around San Giovanni d'Asso; the Mugello north of Florence; and the Val Tiberina towards Arezzo.

Season is everything, and this is where you need to read carefully. The white truffle, Tuber magnatum, runs roughly from mid-September to the end of December and is the expensive one, €2,000 to €4,500 per kilo depending on the year's rainfall. The black winter truffle, melanosporum, runs January to mid-March. The marzuolo or bianchetto appears from January to April, is cheap and aggressively pungent. And the scorzone, the summer black truffle, runs May to August, tastes mild to the point of faintness, and sells for €150 to €300 per kilo.

Which means: almost every truffle hunt advertised in July and August finds scorzone. That is not fraud if it is disclosed, and it is a pleasant morning with a dog. But an operator selling truffle hunting in midsummer without naming the species is letting you assume something untrue.

Second thing worth knowing: for guest hunts, some areas are seeded in advance so the dog is guaranteed a find. It is harmless and near-universal, and it means the hunt is a demonstration rather than a search. A hunter who tells you this unprompted is a hunter worth booking.

Third: if the lunch is dressed with truffle oil, note it. Truffle oil contains no truffle (the aroma is a synthesised molecule, 2,4-dithiapentane) and its presence at a truffle lunch says something about everything else on the table.

Group hunt with a tasting: $80 to $130 (€75 to €120) per person for two to three hours. Hunt with a full lunch of three or four truffle courses and wine: $130 to $200 (€120 to €185). Private family hunts: $250 to $400 (€230 to €370) for two to four people.

Buying truffle to take home: white truffle sells at €200 to €450 per 100g at source depending on the year, black winter truffle at €50 to €120 per 100g, and summer scorzone at €15 to €35 per 100g. A truffle keeps about a week wrapped in paper in the fridge, less once cut.

At restaurants, shaved truffle is charged by weight, typically €5 to €9 per gram for white. A genuine portion is six to eight grams, so €40 to €70 on top of the pasta. Ask the per-gram price before agreeing: everyone does, and it is weighed at the table.

October to December for the white truffle, which is the one worth travelling for. November is the peak, and San Miniato holds truffle market weekends through the month that anchor the whole season.

January to mid-March for black winter truffle: cheaper, less crowded, and the truffle holds up better to cooking, which makes it more versatile if less thrilling.

May to August is scorzone season. Take the hunt if you want a morning in the woods with a dog and a nice lunch, and adjust your expectations about what you will smell. Do not pay white-truffle prices for it.

Weather note: truffle years are made by summer rain. A dry June and July means a small, expensive autumn crop, and every hunter in Tuscany will tell you the same forecast.

GetYourGuide and Viator both list hunts, and a good number of hunters take direct bookings through their own sites or through the agriturismo where the lunch happens, usually cheaper.

Before booking, ask one question in writing: which species will be in season on my dates? A clear answer (white, black winter, marzuolo, scorzone) is a sign of a serious operator. An answer about the magic of the forest is also an answer.

The other things to check: how long the walk is and how steep, whether lunch is included or an add-on, and whether you can buy truffle from the hunter afterwards, which is usually the best price you will find.

Book two to three weeks ahead for October and November. Off-season, a few days is fine.

San Miniato itself is the practical base for white truffle: it sits on the Florence-Pisa rail line, has a small hilltop centre, and is far cheaper than Florence or Siena. Booking there in November means walking to the truffle market rather than driving to it.

For the Crete Senesi hunts, stay in or around Asciano, San Giovanni d'Asso or Siena. The landscape (bare clay hills, almost no trees) is the most striking in Tuscany and completely different from Chianti.

Many hunters work with a specific agriturismo where the post-hunt lunch is served, and staying there is often the simplest arrangement: you eat, you drink, you do not drive afterwards.

White truffle is served raw, shaved at the table, over things that carry it without competing: tagliolini or tagliatelle with butter, a fried or baked egg, fonduta, raw beef. It is never cooked. Black winter truffle is the opposite: it can be warmed, folded into sauces, cooked with meat.

Around the truffle, San Miniato has things worth eating on their own account: mallegato, a Slow Food Presidium blood sausage with pine nuts and raisins, and good cinta senese pork. In the Crete Senesi, pici, pecorino from nearby Pienza, and wild boar.

One rule for restaurants during truffle season: a menu offering white truffle in September at a low fixed supplement is offering you something else. Truffle is priced by weight because its price moves weekly.