Imagine this truly atmospheric scene:

In the Piemonte region of Italy, a dense white fog lingers and swirls amongst you and the trees of a dark forest stretching in each direction, gradually fading from view. The security of your daylight companion is rapidly disappearing, replaced by a descending and menacing black night. Your heightened senses hear the loud and ominous silence surrounding you and the smell of damp, woody air smelling of decay. Your body flinches, startled by an unseen bird squawking and flapping noisily as it escapes into the darkness; it is frightened by an over-enthusiastic dog digging furiously through the broken branches and leaf scree surrounding the base of a broad and tall tree.

But why?

Well… because the secret world of truffle hunting has begun.

Truffle Knowledge

Truffles are rare fruiting body fungi with over sixty varieties, but only nine are edible. They are highly adept ascomycetes, being excellent ecological friends with the environment, decomposing organic matter and recycling nutrients for the surrounding ground layers.

You can surprise your friends with more knowledge about this fungi, knowing that truffle herald from the genus Tuber and is an ectomycorrhizal fungus type, wanting to be close buddies with older and larger trees – a symbiotic relationship, allowing the sharing and absorption of water, nitrogen and phosphorus. Also, being hypogean, they love hiding underground between pine, poplar, beech, and oak tree roots.

One truffle in Italian is a tartufo, or several tartufi, and revered as a delicacy with a strong, earthy, nutty, hinting-on-garlic aroma and flavour. They are thinly shaved or finely chopped on or within dishes, heightening and enhancing their flavours. Alternatively, truffle oil can be drizzled over your dishes, giving your food an intense and distinct aroma.

For the truffle hunter, they grow tantalising out of sight, loving a temperate climate, and are primarily harvested in Italy, Spain, France and on the other side of the Pond in Oregan and Washington states.

On menus worldwide, you may find rare and expensive truffles incorporated into a chef’s gourmet dishes. In Italy, the main truffle types are white (Tuber magnatum), the outer skin ranging from pale cream to brown) and black specimens (tuber melanosporum), having dark black and rough outer skin with a white-veined pattern across a dark brown fleshy interior.

In Piedmont, within the Alba region of Italy, the world-famous white or pico truffles grow quietly underground. They possess a pale, milk-like appearance and an intensely robust nutty or earthy tang that explodes on the palette. Since the white truffle has a strong flavour, they are sparingly sliced, shaved or finely chopped to complement and enhance other ingredients rather than overwhelming or swamping them.

Italian white truffles are grubbed out by enthusiastic prized dogs in Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Marche. These regions offer the ideal soil and climate conditions for white truffles to thrive, typically harvested in the autumn and early winter.

Black truffles have a dark, nearly black outer skin, with a wartlike surface contrasting with the smooth, lighter inside flesh. They range from brown to blackish hues crossed by a haphazard white veining.

In this review, we are concentrating on the Périgord region in northwest Italy. In particular, we are zeroing in on the heart of the Roero wine district around Vezza d’Alba. This region’s ancient hills and forests provide the perfect climate and soil conditions for truffles to flourish underground, where they love the hot, humid summers and chilly, rainy winters.

The mysterious world of truffle hunting is serious business and not for the faint-hearted. There is a worldwide demand for the expensive and superior Italian black and white truffles. The fungi come in all shapes and sizes, typically hiding a hand’s length in the soil. They try to be as challenging to find as possible, and because of the market demand, they cost an arm and a leg. Consequently, the art of discovering truffles encompasses a world of stealth, secrecy and skullduggery. It has been known for rival hunters to poison truffle-hunting trained dogs – that can cost €6,000 – to hinder a competition’s ability to continue their business.

Female pigs or sows are documented in 15th century Italy for snouting out truffles, having a lovely saliva mixture that includes a pheromone similar to the strong truffle aroma permeating through the soil around mature trees. Unfortunately, those piggies loved the tasty fungi, infuriating the truffle hunters by eating their buried gold.
Enter the trained truffle-hunting dogs wearing muzzles to stop them from having a tasty but expensive snack. Beagles, Lagotto Romagnolo, and English springer spaniels are the most used breeds of dogs that find truffle hunting their calling in life. They love training to sniff and dig out the elusive fungi.

When sufficient truffles are discovered and vigorously dug out by the hunters’ dogs, the delicate crop has to be cared for and controlled. Truffle hunters are experts at knowing what they have found and how to prepare them for markets or a factory manufacturing paté, oils and even truffle cheese.

The process of truffles beginning their journey from discovery in the soil of a damp and fog-laden forest to your posh restaurant plate starts with each delicate truffle surface carefully cleaned of earth and forest waste. After cleaning, a truffle is graded for size and quality, with particular attention paid to any damage to the delicate surface from being found or pesky pests that have made holes or buried themselves into internal flesh or gleba.

Truffles cleared for the market or manufactured into different products must be fooled into believing they are still comfortably hidden next to damp tree roots – otherwise, they spoil quickly. To ensure the continuation of their A1 condition, they are carefully stored on wet paper at a low and humid temperature – but not for long. The storage of expensive truffles, especially prized white examples, is kept to the absolute minimum, maintaining their freshness before transportation across Italy and the world or manufactured into products.

La Rustichella

La Rustichella is a tightly-knit family company producing a wide variety of high-quality truffle-based products in a modern, clean and well-organised factory. The family’s manufacturing facility has an adjoining and architecturally striking restaurant in San Cesareo in the Province of Rome.

Sergio Brugnoli, the company’s founder, was instrumental in increasing the worldwide knowledge of truffle and their use in dishes by gourmet chefs and the general public. He has achieved this success by manufacturing top-quality natural Italian truffle products and distributing them globally. La Rustichella is respected worldwide and easily maintains a leading position in the competitive truffle industry.

In 1948, Sergio Brugnoli was born in Norcia or Nursia, a town and commune in Perugia in Umbria. He combined his entrepreneurial spirit with travelling the globe and meeting people from different cultures, which earned him the well-deserved nickname “un uomo di spettacolo con un grande cuore” – a showman with a big heart. His passion and dream was to create the world’s finest truffle paté from superior natural ingredients from the land he loved so much.
Sergio fell in love with Maria Marsili in Norcia and married her in 1976. Their loving partnership created a happy marriage and a successful working relationship. During the 1980s, Maria and Sergio transformed their family workshop into a successful business, identifying lucrative international markets for authentic Italian products, including their national fungi delicacy – truffles.

Sergio and Maria enjoyed travelling the world, combining their enjoyment of meeting wonderful people and being ambassadors for authentic Italian products. In the US, they discovered that Americans particularly loved them. Sergio’s and Maria’s travels enabled them to impart enthusiastic and passionate knowledge of Italian truffles and their beautiful flavours to haute-cuisine chefs and international purchasers of quality food products.

Sergio’s efforts fostered a ‘global truffle culture’, encouraging cooperation from everyone connected with Italian food products. His passion, dedication and innovative mind created inspirational uses for truffles when combined with other foods; the resulting flavours of his unique dishes surprised even the most demanding food connoisseurs with their compatibility and great taste. This innovative approach to truffle use and distinctive menu creations has made La Rustichella an ultra-successful culinary icon.

The couple’s quest and success in promoting their superior truffles earned them justified respect from all sectors of the US business community. From the outset, and at the top of their priority list, the Italian couple wanted natural ingredients in their much sought-after products, combining with their belief in organic values to deliver a pure, high-quality, and authentic flavour to La Rustichella’s varied truffle products. For example, one of the company’s first products, Black Truffle Paté, is still a prestigious bestseller, maintaining its lead position in the truffle marketplace, with consistent and exceptional quality – and, of course, its gorgeous Italian flavour.

New international markets are a massive target for the innovative and progressive marketing guys at La Rustichella, and the result of their successes is displays of their products in selected quality stores and deli shelves across many countries, including America, Singapore, Brazil, and even England.

The story of any successful family company centres on the family and their close cooperation. The many endearing and business characteristics of Sergio and Maria Brugnoli, the founders of La Rustichella, have been passed to the next generation. Their offspring have taken up the baton to ensure La Rustichella and its ever-growing product range are still innovative and distributed worldwide, guaranteeing their continued success.

The company offers you the highest quality truffle products you can find worldwide. Indulge in the following to hit 10 out of 10 on the tastometer:

Black and white truffle paté
Black sliced truffle
Whole black and white truffles
Asparagus and truffle
Pumpkin and truffle
Sundried tomatoes and truffle
Artichoke cream
Arrabbiata
Porcini mushroom paté
Green and black olive paté
White and black truffle honey
Black truffle coarse salt
Black truffle table salt
Black and white truffle oil
Black truffle vinegar
White balsamic vinegar
White and black dressing.

In addition to the above products, La Rustichella can offer you a quarter, half or whole black truffle cheese to complete your truffle world.

To get your tastebuds jumping about, here is a yummy recipe to get you started with truffles, care of Andrea Pacelli, La Rustichellas brilliant chef:

You will need eight medium eggs; 21.1oz (0.6kg) potatoes; 7oz (0.2kg) onions; 3.3 fl. oz (98 ml) black truffle oil; 17 fl. oz (503ml) sunflower oil (to fry the potatoes); 3.5oz (0.1kg) black truffle paté; salt and pepper.

Method

1. Chop and Julienne your onions. Heat half the truffle oil, add the onions and cook until brownish and caramelised.
2. In another pan, heat the sunflower oil in a low setting. While that happens, peel the potatoes, cube them, and dry them. Fry the cubes in hot oil.
3. Once fried, sprinkle salt on the potato cubes and then mix with the onions – continue to cook.
4. Mix the eggs, a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of pepper, the black truffle paté, and the potato and onion mixture. Thoroughly and carefully combine – as if you are making scrambled eggs.
5. When the eggs begin thickening, stop mixing and leave on medium heat like an omelette.
6. Voilà! You have made a tortilla – flip it with the help of a plate and cook the other side.

The secret of this dish is to keep the middle deliciously creamy.

If you are a big fan of Italian white truffles, visit the annual Alba White Truffle Fair from October until December. Alternatively, choose the National Black Truffle Fair in Montiglio Monferrato in October.

From Italian Truffles to Italian Wine

Let us close our definitive investigation of truffles and change to an equally exquisite Italian product.

Antica Cascina Dei Conti Di Roera Winery

Okay… Now, what compliments the flavour of dishes blessed with truffles – surely you will agree that it has to be an Italian Roero grape wine – and one of the best wineries in the Piedmont region of Italy, centred on the province of Cuneo is Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roera Olivero, southeast of Turin.

For nearly seventy-five years, vines have been nurtured on the ancient hills around Vezza d’Alba in Cascina Valmanera, a natural amphitheatre of nourishing soil that rose from the sea three million years ago.

In 1970, Daniela Gonzalez’s parents changed their company exclusively to winemaking. They began Cascina dei Conti di Roera quality winemaking with Luigi Olivia, producing superior red, white, rosé DOCG wines on their land. In addition, 2009 saw the production of sparkling wines.

The property has 13.5 hectares of vines spread across the municipalities of Roero di Vezza d’Alba, Monteu Roero, and Canale, and each area possesses incredible biodiversity within woods, fields, hazelnut groves and meadows. These natural resources are homes to trees, flowers, rare orchids, roe deer, foxes, squirrels, owls and many species of birds.

Daniela and Luigi say, “Our idea of viticulture is summed up in one word: authenticity”, and this is a genuine philosophy you taste in each DOCG Roero and Spumante bottle.

The couple has always felt part of the company after growing up in the vineyards of Roero and marrying in the 90s. To succeed in their quest to produce the best wines, they invested in Nebbiolo, Arneis, Favorita, and Barbera native vines.

Daniela and Luigi’s love of their land inspired them to become members of “The Green Experience,” which certifies sustainable natural viticulturers who preserve Mother Earth and their vines’ ancestral roots.

Daniela and Luigi’s Wines

When you pop into your favourite wine merchant and scan top-quality Italian wines, look for the best – Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roera. If you love your reds, choose their Roero DOGC Riserva Vigna Sant’Anna; this delicious red comes from the family’s most excellent one-hectare vineyard, planted in 1954 by Daniela and Luigi’s grandfather, Giovanni Porella. The vineyard’s yield is limited to around six tonnes, giving lucky drinkers only 4,000 bottles to enjoy.

Your next difficult choice is the Sant’Anna, the velvet Nebbiolo, or the Barbera D’Alba DOC.

Daniela and Luigi’s whites are equally exquisite, so choose Roero Arneis DOCG Riserva, Langhe DOC Favorita, or the Roero Arneis DOCG Vezza D’Alba.

If you want an extraordinary fizz, choose Spumante Dosaggio Zero San Giovanni or the Nebbiolo D’Alba DOC Rosé Spumante Brut.

To aid your digestion or disgestivo (says tradition) after your truffle-infused meals, try Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero grappe wines with a high-proof content. If you are unsure what grappe means, the drink is not a wine but a pomace produced from left-over grape skins, seeds and stems. Try… gently… Nebbiolo Grappa or Arneis Grappa – they are lovely.

Cellar

Before bottling, Daniela and Luigi ferment their white wines in stainless steel tanks for five to six months. Red wines are macerated over thirty to forty days. Part of the wine is put in wood barrels – two years for the Roero San’Anna and six to eight months for the Nebbiolo d’Alba second passage barriques (in large oak barrels), and after six months, the Barbera d’Alba is laid to rest. In 2009, the company’s sparkling wines fermentation and bottling line were housed within a beautifully converted barn.

Epilogue

There we are. We started our journey through the beautiful scenic country of northwest Italy, experiencing the strange but wonderful world of hunting for truffles and then sampling the delights of Roero wines. Finally, flying southeast down to Rome, we met the wonderful family behind La Rustichella truffle products and the colourful history behind their name.

Undoubtedly, your palate is eager to taste the delicacy of La Rustichella’s famous Italian truffles and to fill a glass with a Cascina dei Conti di Roera red or white wine or both, so… have a chat with both families at their headquarters – they speak English and of course, excellent Italian.

Best of all, for a truly Italian experience, visit the gorgeous Love Truffles restaurant adjacent to the La Rustichella factory or treat yourself to a selection of their wide-ranging products in the light and airy shop. To find the restaurant, travel to La Rustichella at Via M. laconelli, 6 – 00030 San Cesareo (RM), and watch out for the restaurant’s exciting and original architecture at the entrance and its sign with its heart-shaped logo cleverly designed with its interior depicting a slice through one of their tasty truffles.

A: La Rustichella, Via M. laconelli, 6 – 00030 San Cesareo (RM)
T: 06 958 8047
E: Information

To experience the breathtaking countryside of the Piedmont region, meet Daniela and Luigia and delve into the world of Cascina dei Conti di Roera vineyards and wines. Arrange a visit to:

A: Cascina dei Conti di Roer, Via Val Rubiagno, 2, 12040 Vezza d’Alba (CN), P.IVA 03465530040
T. +39 0173 65459
E: Information

Finally,
“Buoni pasti al tartufo e goditi i vini!” – Enjoy your truffle dishes and savour those wonderful wines!

Written by Peter Sissons for Luxuria Lifestyle International

All photography: Copyright Peter Sissons © 2024