Also known as Alba white truffle or Piedmont truffle because it grows abundantly especially in this region, but it can also be found in other areas of central Italy and in the south of France with different quality characteristics for each area. Alba has baptized it, but in Piedmont it is present throughout the Montferrat, Langhe and Roero areas and partly on the Turin hills.
The truffle is a hypogeum fungus which grows underground, closely linked to certain kinds of plants, from which it absorbs nutrition by means of an extensive and ramified root system.
The fruit is in the form of a tuber and consists of a fleshy mass, whose colour varies from white to grey tending towards brown, depending on the plant on which it lives and grows. Indeed, the truffle consists of a percentage of water and mineral salts, which it absorbs from the surrounding soil.
Its form, usually round, depends on the nature of the soil: if the soil is soft it will be smoother; if the soil is compact it will have more difficulty growing and will therefore tend to be more protuberant and lumpy.
From the middle of September to the end of December the truffle hunters from Alba scour the secret pathways among the hills of the Langhe and Roero areas.
Indeed the white truffle reaches maturity in autumn and is at its best from October onwards.
Taxi Langa offers the possibility to make excursions for the search of truffles, thanks to the valuable collaboration of the trifolao Marco Varaldo.