The countdown has started in the Langhe hills. On October 10, the small Piedmont town of Alba kicks off the 96th edition of its Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco, the International White Truffle Fair. It runs through December 6: nearly two months of trading, tastings and auctions built around an underground fungus the region has turned into a full-blown tourism industry.
Every weekend, the Cortile della Maddalena hosts the Mercato Mondiale del Tartufo Bianco, the World Market for white truffles. Truffle hunters and dealers lay out their best specimens on closely watched stalls, while buyers who sometimes travel long distances leave with a few grams worth several hundred euros. Last year’s edition drew more than 600,000 visitors from roughly sixty countries, according to organizers.
The program stretches well beyond the market: smell-and-taste workshops, wine pairings, period costume parades, and the Palio degli Asini, a donkey race that openly pokes fun at the horse palio held in nearby Asti. The season traditionally closes with an international auction that has raised more than 7 million euros for charity since it began in 1999.
The region has no shortage of credentials to back up the hype. The vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2014, Alba joined UNESCO’s Creative Cities of Gastronomy network in 2017, and truffle hunting itself was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021.
One question remains open days before the opening: how good this year’s harvest will be. That depends largely on late-summer rain and autumn temperatures, and it’s what will set prices on the stalls from the first weekends of October onward.