Press

THEIR scent is “musky, fiery, savoury, mysterious—a hot drowsy smell, that lulls the senses, and yet enflames them,” wrote William Makepeace Thackeray. Alexandre Dumas thought that truffles “make women more tender and men more lovable”. That is an exaggeration, but visitors to the Oregon Truffle Festival, which starts on January 24th, are happy to pay…

Planning to attend the Oregon Truffle Festival at the end of the month? Forget it. “The Epicurious Experience” package ($625 per person) is sold out. So is the “Epicurious Gourmand” ($695), the “Gourmand at the Villa” ($750) and even the “Epicurious Grower” ($1,050). And the waiting list is hundreds of names long. Founders Charles Lefevre…

“I’ve already blocked out the dates on my 2015 calendar. The last weekend in January is truffle time, which means the first few weeks of the new year are a time of belt-tightening. I’m talking about the annual Oregon Truffle Festival, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary next year. I hear there are big…

The Oregon Truffle Festival is so well-liked and jam-packed with interesting events that many of the weekend experiences have already sold out. That said, there’s still truffle dog training and an Oregon truffle marketplace that includes “truffle tastings, artisan foods, fresh truffles, a truffle dog demonstration, and lecture series.” Read full article.

There are more than grapes growing at Left Coast Cellars in Oregon’s wine country. Vineyard manager Luke McCollom estimates he’s invested more than $25,000 on an underground crop with the potential to rival the one above ground. Truffles — the fruity-scented fungi, not the chocolate balls — suddenly seem to be big business.

The fragrant, elusive, mysterious and costly truffle, whether white, black or in between, has been the object of scientific research for decades. The challenge has been to cultivate it to increase the supply. Read full article.

They said it couldn’t be done, but apparently they were wrong. What’s being called the Willamette Valley’s “first cultivated black truffle” has just been found near Corvallis in an orchard of inoculated hazelnut trees supplied by New World Trufflieres, Inc. The truffle is a Perigord variety or Tuber melanosporum, the same variety that is cultivated…

Abbotsford farmer Bill Stewart has produced B.C.’s first Périgord truffle, a culinary delicacy that fetches up to $2,200 a kilo wholesale. The near-golf-ball sized fungus was unearthed by a truffle-sniffing dog in a seven-acre stand of specially inoculated hazelnut trees that Stewart planted nine years ago. Two more truffles have been unearthed since.

Vineyard owners think beyond wine in planting trees primed for producing cultivated European varieties. Maneuvering up the long driveway into Pfeiffer Winery in Junction City on a recent spring morning, there is a moment of indecision as to which direction to take at a fork in the gravel road. Bear right to continue on up…

When a dog finds its first truffle — the fungus, not the chocolate candy — the sound you hear will most likely be the voice of a very excited dog handler. Read full article.

This is not a bad idea at all: a weekend devoted to truffles, including tastings at a picturesque villa, training sessions so that your dog can learn how to hunt for truffles, and a grand dinner. Read full article.