I promised a final tally for our truffle season. It’s taken me far too long to post, but I can report that we produced 228g this year, off just one tree. If we could match that yield across the whole truffiere, we’d be doing rather well… We didn’t sell any, but a couple of guests staying at The Shearer’s Cottage had a successful truffle hunt, and a few friends got some to taste. For a while, I even had more than I could eat – certainly more than Camille wanted to eat!

Spring has now sprung, and the rituals of mowing and weeding are being followed. Irrigation is ready to go, sun is shining, and we’ve got a few ideas to try to see if we can persuade a few more trees to get busy. We’ll be planting another 50 trees, playing around with the soil, and even transplanting a core of soil from the productive tree to another to see if that has any effect. Fingers crossed.

It’s been a warm, wet summer in Britain and that’s brought another bumper crop of summer truffles. Back at the beginning of the month The Guardian consulted Truffles UK boss Nigel Haddon-Paton:

“It’s a really exciting year,” said Haddon-Paton. “Like most crops, truffles need water and warmth and that’s what we’ve had this summer. There are lots of truffles and we have found them up to 500g each – bigger than cricket balls. We had a look at some three weeks ago, but they weren’t right. They had grown slowly because of the spring cold. However, since then we have had lots of rain, which has helped them grow, and it has also been humid, so they are doing very well.”

More from The Times, Telegraph, Independent and the BBC, who reported on a find of ten summer truffles in a Plymouth garden. There’s a little video snippet on that page that’s worth watching, if only for the reporter’s halting attempts to use a few truffle cliches. Britain’s first truffle dog championship was also held earlier this month near Basingstoke in Hampshire. The winner was Bramble, a black labrador owned by James Fever from Wiltshire, the Basingstoke Gazette reports.

Meanwhile, in Australia, another good season is approaching its end, as The Age discovers.

According to president of the Australian Truffle Growers’ Association, Wayne Haslam, Australia’s 150 truffle growers are expected to harvest 1 1/2 to two?tonnes of truffles this year. Official figures say half of those will come from WA, a quarter from northern Tasmania and the remainder from Ballarat, the Yarra Valley and Gippsland in Victoria; and Canberra, Bathurst and Orange in NSW. However, many growers say the figures don’t add up and are secretive about their yields – this is a product worth up to $3000 a kilogram, after all. At its annual general meeting last month, the association predicted that Australian truffle production would approach 10 tonnes by 2013. Perfect timing, with export markets opening up around the world as French truffle production rates plummet and Australian growers develop a reputation for quality.

There’s nothing like confidence – and the truffles to back it up. If you’d like to see pictures of at least one of the people quoted therein (hi Wayne!), visit Aussie magazine Regional Food, and view their nifty photo essay on truffles in Australia and Umbria.

Earlier this year, Jeff Weston’s Borchii Park truffiere near Christchurch produced its first bianchetto truffles. It was an early fruiting, brought on by late summer rains, and the truffles didn’t achieve full ripeness. But it augured well for the season – which has just got under way in earnest. Hugo (above) has been busy…

These are good ripe truffles – the southern hemisphere’s first commercial crop of Tuber borchii, and Jeff is beginning to sell them on to keen chefs around the region. The largest so far have been 136g and 137g. Being a scholar and a gentleman, he’s popped a sample in the post to me. Tomorrow night’s dinner is going to be interesting…

First one of the 2008 season. Only 14 g, not very ripe (see the reddish tinge between the warts on the skin?). The flesh is whitish brown, and there’s not much aroma. Peg showed a tiny bit of interest, and when I put the rake through the surface, up popped this little treasure. Same tree as our first truffle, back in 2006. I reckon it will be a week or two before any others will be approaching ripeness. Fingers crossed…

Meanwhile, I’m flying across to Tasmania in the morning to research an article for Food & Wine magazine in the USA. Apparently I have to stay at a selection of top lodges, taste fine wines and whiskeys, and eat in the best restaurants. It’s a tough assignment, but someone has to do it. I hope to catch up with Tim Terry of Truffles Australis, who’s very pleased with a 477 g truffle he found a week ago. No doubt he will point out that his is bigger than mine… Back in NZ, the Langham Hotel in Auckland is boasting about its first truffle purchase of the season, and lagotto owners Chris and Jane Counsell have proved fine truffle dog trainers. Their Flickr collection shows Mia finding truffles at Alan Hall’s Gisborne truffiere at her first attempt. Congratulations!

It’s been far too long, I know, but the other place has been taking up most of my time. Here’s an early winter update of things truffle. Prospects at Limestone Hills look reasonable. Good rain in February after a hot summer should have got the fungus moving, and we’ve finally completed an irrigation upgrade which allows us much better control over the water we apply to the trees. There are good reports from other Canterbury growers, and Peg has been showing interest in one or two places when we’ve been out on training runs – including the hazel where we got our first harvest. Fingers are firmly crossed, wood is being touched, etc & etc.

Continue reading →

This year’s Oregon Truffle Festival is coming up at the end of this month. I had a great time there last year – even if I did have to sing for my supper – and I’m sure this year will be even better. Ian Hall and Alessandra Zambonelli are doing the keynote, the grower’s forum, and launching their new book, Taming The Truffle, so those sections will be certainly be well worth attending [Note: they’re both friends, so I’m biased]. I’ll be briefing Alessandra on what to expect in Eugene and how to harvest Oregon whites when she visits us at Limestone Hills next week.

Charlie and Leslie: good luck, and fine truffles for all!