Vaglia

Still further into the mountains we arrived at what was once a village. The map no longer lists this as a village because beggining in the 1930's families gave up their homes and moved away -- likely for economic reasons. The great grandfather of the current owner purchased the homes as they became available. Then again in the 1960's a second wave of migration occurred -- this time the youth was probably not willing to remain. This time the father of the current owner purchased each home that was available. Today they own the entire village. Each home came with some land so they own all the land around them and actively farm cattle, sheep, hay. In addition they offer the individual homes as rentals to tourists. They also happen to be on top of a location where truffles abound. This year being so dry was not a good year but we learned that in a good year they could expect to harvest 4-5 pounds of these pricey gems everyday during the two month season. Although the black truffles are not the most prized they still command $1500 per pound -- that's $7600 on a good day -- do the math...

They no longer use pigs to search for them. Pigs like to eat them which causes two problems 1) you can't get them back if the pig eats it and 2) they destroy the truffle's substrate. Several years ago a wild boat got not the fenced area and destroyed much of the collection area. So they use dogs instead. It was really something to walk around the property with the owner while he gently worked with his dogs. They were exceptionally well trained! As expected it was difficult to find anything but at one point one of the dogs came down out of the hills with her mouth closed -- no tongue hanging out -- and promptly dropped a black truffle into his out stretched hand. It was really something to experience these two old friends working togetherRead more