White truffle label

In Italy, several species of truffle grow, some more valuable and rarer, others more common.

The differences between truffles lie in the colour of the skin (peridium), the colour of the inner zone (glebe) as well as in the taste and smell of the truffles.

The rarest species of all is the "Tuber Magnatum Pico" because it is not yet cultivable.

The Tuber Magnatum Pico is generally referred to as the 'white truffle' and is the world's best-loved truffle, also the most significant truffle in terms of gastronomy.

Tuber Magnatum Pico is usually spherical in shape, but it is also often flattened and irregularly shaped, with a pale yellow or even tawny peridium, occasionally found with red-brown spots. The gleba, which is criss-crossed by abundant, highly branched white veins, varies in colour from a milky hue to deep pink to light brown.

The size of the White Truffle is flexible, it can easily reach that of a large apple, and some specimens have easily exceeded a kilo in size!

The White Truffle is harvested from late summer through autumn to early winter. The start and end dates of the harvest are set each year by the designated county administration.

When reading "White Truffle" on a product label, make sure that the species "Tuber Magnatum Pico" is listed and highlighted.

Quite often, we have seen products labelled "white truffle" even though they contain "tuber Borchii" or "tuber albidum" varieties as ingredients.

It is true that the colour for "tuber Borchii" or "tuber Albidum" is similar to the colour Tuber Magnatum Pico, however, both of the above mentioned botanical species are qualitatively different from Tuber Magnatum Pico, having a considerably lower economic value (both cost 10 to 15 times less than Tuber Magnatum Pico).

In Italy, it is forbidden to call Albidum-Borchii tubers "white truffles", these varieties are instead called "bianchetti" (translated as "biancastro" in English) or Marzuolo (translated as "truffle born in March" or "Tartufo biancastro primaverile").

So pay attention to the product labels and read them carefully: a "White truffle cream" must contain a percentage of Tuber magnatum Pico in the list of ingredients, not just substitutes such as Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum (in which case the product should be labelled "whitish truffle cream").

At TartufLanghe we never use Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum, which in our opinion are mushrooms of a decidedly inferior quality to Tuber Magnatum Pico, both of which have an intense but overpowering flavour that makes them difficult to digest.

Buy Fresh White Alba Truffle here!