On the trail of a hidden treasure: truffle hunting in Umbria

A few centimetres below the surface of our oak forest, something is growing. No light, no water you can see, no sign of it above ground.
Just the right soil, the right roots, and years of patience.
That's a truffle. And finding one takes a person who's spent their whole life learning how.

First things first: what actually is a truffle?

Not a chocolate. Not something that grows on a supermarket shelf.

A truffle is an underground fungus that grows attached to tree roots — oak, holm oak, hazelnut. It can't be forced. It can't be mass-produced. It depends on the exact combination of soil type, rainfall, temperature, and tree. Get one thing wrong, and there's nothing there.

That's why it's rare. That's why a single one can cost more than a steak dinner. And that's why finding it by hand, in the wild, is still the only way it's done.

Meet Stefano and Luna

Stefano learned to hunt truffles as a kid, walking these same woods with his father and grandfather. No course, no certification — just years of watching, listening, and getting his boots muddy.

Luna is his Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian breed selected over centuries for exactly one job: finding truffles underground. She's not a pet doing tricks. She works. Her nose can detect a truffle buried 30 centimetres down, through soil and leaves and competing smells.

Watch them move through the trees together and you'll notice they barely need to communicate. Stefano reads Luna's body language — the way she slows down, circles back, drops her nose closer to the ground. She starts digging. He kneels beside her.
That's the moment.

What actually happens on the walk

You'll head into the oak forest on our property — the same ground Stefano has walked hundreds of times. He'll show you what to look for: subtle changes in the soil, specific trees, spots where the vegetation shifts in ways most people would walk straight past.

He'll explain the seasons. The summer truffle. The prized white truffle of autumn. The black winter truffle. Each one has its window, its preferred roots, its own smell. Knowing the difference is part of the craft.

Then Luna does what Luna does. She moves, she sniffs, she stops. Digs. And if the conditions are right — if the season is good and the ground has what it needs — you'll watch something get pulled out of the earth that was invisible thirty seconds ago.

That moment doesn't get old, even for Stefano.

The smell. You need to be ready for the smell.

Fresh truffle, just out of the ground, smells like nothing else in ordinary life. Earthy, intense, faintly animal. It fills the air immediately.
Most people go quiet when they smell it for the first time. Not because it's overwhelming — because there's simply no reference point for it.

It doesn't smell like food you've eaten before. It smells like the forest floor made edible.

You'll carry that smell home with you. It's the kind of thing you describe to people and they don't quite believe you until they're there.

Back at the farmhouse: you taste it

At the end of the walk, there's a tasting. If the season allows, you'll try the truffle that was just found — prepared simply, because fresh truffle doesn't need anything complicated done to it.

Out of season, you'll taste our truffle products instead — made here, with local ingredients, nothing artificial. The point is the same either way: to show you what this ingredient actually tastes like when it comes from the right place at the right time.

The gap between fresh, local truffle and the jarred version you find in a supermarket is enormous.
Tasting it here closes that gap permanently. Stefano does something similar with honey — a blind tasting where you stop trusting the label and start trusting your palate.

Why bother?

Because this isn't something you can replicate at home or find in a guidebook.
You're spending an hour or two with someone who grew up doing this, on land where it's been done for generations, with a dog trained for nothing else.

That combination — the specific person, the specific dog, the specific forest — is not available anywhere else.

No previous experience needed. No knowledge of truffles required. You just need to show up, put on walking shoes, and be willing to follow a dog into the trees.

You'll come back with muddy boots, the smell of oak forest on your jacket, and a story that doesn't sound like anything else from the trip and if you want more of that feeling, there are other ways to spend your time here without going very far.

Ready?

Experience something that will stay with you as more than just a memory.