Les Pastras Truffle Hunt
Les Pastras Truffle Hunt is a really interesting tour offered by two exceptional hosts, Lisa and Johann. We learnt a lot about truffle on the tour and also got to taste a sampling of fresh truffle hors d'oeuvres made from the truffles we harvested. Truffle grows from truffle spores developed on oak tree roots. It takes spores 7-10 years to develop till its first "fruition" of truffle. Truffle fruit takes 4 months to mature and then a two-week window before it goes bad. During these two weeks, truffle fruit will send out a special strong aroma that attracts pigs or trained dogs to dig them out. When truffle fruit gets eaten by animals, their manure will help spread more spores. There are two seasons every year - the summer truffles start to grow in Feb and can start harvesting in Jun, and the winter truffles Oct and Dec. Winter and summer truffles are actually two different species. Provence winter truffle sells for $1K per kg and summer truffle sells for $200 per kg. We harvested in total 84g of summer truffle on our tour with the help of two lovely hunt dogs. The Les Pastras farm harvests about 5-10lb (2-4kg) truffle on average per week. The most expensive truffle is the white truffle from Alba (Italy) which costs $3k per kg.