Say “white truffle” and most people think of Alba. But the Crete Senesi have their own, and those who know it know that what grows here is Tuber magnatum pico — exactly the same species — in an area that sees a fraction of the truffle tourism.
The village at the centre of it is San Giovanni d’Asso, part of the municipality of Montalcino, six kilometres from our farm. It’s a small place with a medieval castle housing a museum entirely devoted to the truffle, and in autumn it becomes the hub of a circuit of hunters, dogs and restaurants that runs into winter.
White truffles cannot be farmed. They grow in symbiosis with the roots of certain trees — oak, poplar, willow, lime — and only where the soil is right. The Crete Senesi, with their compact clay and damp valley floors along the streams, are one of those places. The truffle grows underground and gives no sign at the surface: finding one takes a trained dog and someone who can read the wood.
The white truffle season runs from autumn into early winter and is governed by rain: a dry September means a poor season, rain at the right moment means a good year. That’s why the price moves week by week, and why no serious hunter will tell you in September how November will go.
The same hills produce the others too: the bianchetto in late winter, the scorzone in summer, the uncinato in autumn. Cheaper and less celebrated, but excellent in the right dish.
On autumn weekends San Giovanni d’Asso hosts its truffle market: hunters’ stalls, street food, demonstrations with the dogs. The calendar changes from year to year — dates are published by the Comune di Montalcino and the truffle hunters’ associations a few weeks beforehand, so check when the time comes rather than trusting a date on a blog.
If you’re here on one of those weekends, expect the village to be full: arrive early and park outside the centre.
Smell first. A good white truffle announces itself from half a metre away — intense, aggressive, something between garlic and hay. If you have to bring your nose close, walk away.
It must be firm. Press gently with your thumb: if it yields, it’s old or has taken on moisture.
Buy by weight, in front of you. Scales on the table. Be wary of anyone selling them already cleaned and polished: soil left in the folds is normal, in fact it’s a good sign.
It lasts days, not weeks. White truffle doesn’t keep: wrap it in kitchen paper, store it in a sealed container in the fridge and eat it within three or four days, changing the paper daily. Anyone promising two weeks is selling you something else.
Raw, always. Never cook it. Shave it at the last moment over a hot, simple dish — tagliolini with butter, eggs, a light fonduta. The heat of the plate opens it; a flame kills it.
Our farm lies six kilometres from San Giovanni d’Asso, inside the same clay landscape where the truffle grows. People who come for the season usually combine two things: a morning at the stalls or out with a hunter, and the rest of the day in the valley — Montalcino, Pienza and Bagno Vignoni are all half an hour away.
You can sleep in the apartment in the farmhouse or in one of the rooms, and have dinner by reservation, cooked with whatever the fields are giving at that moment: spelt and pulse soups, hand-rolled pasta, garden vegetables, our own oil. Truffle, when there is truffle, is local — but it’s a wild, seasonal product: ask us how the season is going rather than taking it for granted.
Autumn here is also olive harvest and pressing time. Anyone arriving in those weeks sees the countryside at its busiest — and tastes the new oil, which is a different thing altogether from the oil six months later.