Truffle
The truffle is a fruiting body of mushrooms belonging to the Tuber genus that completes its entire life cycle underground. Must live in symbiosis with tree plants to produce the precious sporocarp. It is made up of an external wall (peridium), which can be smooth or sculptured and varying in color from light to dark.
The internal mass, called gleba, of a color ranging from white to black, from pink to brown, is crossed by more or less wide and branched veins that delimit the alveoli in which large cells (the aschi) containing the spores are immersed. The morphological characteristics of the peridium, the gleba, the axes and the spores, added to the size and organoleptic characteristics allow the identification of the truffle species
There is hardly a way to pay for water as expensive as when you buy a truffle! It generally contains over 80% of it. The table shows the percentage composition of a Tuber melanosporum and a Tuber magnatum on the fresh.
In the mineral elements of both, potassium prevails, followed by calcium, sodium, magnesium, iron, zinc and copper. The value of the truffle therefore lies not in its food intake, but in its enormous ability to produce pleasure in the user. This feature is also attributed to the large difference in market price existing between species whose chemical composition differs little.
Robiola di Roccaverano: 40 years of PDO
It has soft dough, unmistakable creaminess and is good both fresh and in short seasoning: it is the Robiola di Roccaverano, Piedmontese cheese that has made itself known throughout Italy and abroad and which celebrates the four decades of DOP in 2019.
Today between 400 and 420 thousand forms are produced per year.
The Consortium that the protection consists of small producers distributed in a territory that winds between the provinces of Asti and Alessandria: 10 municipalities in the Asti area and 9 in the Alessandria area, in the hilly area of the Langa di Roccaverano (Asti), in Val Bormida and Val Erro, as required by the production specification.
Robiola di Roccaverano is a Slow Food Presidium: the Presidium protects some small producers and enhances the classic Roccaverano robiola, that is, the one produced exclusively with raw goat milk.
Alta Langa Docg is the brut sparkling wine from Piedmont
A denomination with limited production, with a very long history: it was the first classic method to be produced in Italy, since the mid-nineteenth century, in the “Underground Cathedrals” today recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It is made of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes, in purity or together in variable percentage; it can be white or rosé, brut or pas dosé and has very long aging times on the lees, as required by the strict specification: at least 30 months.
• The Alta Langa is exclusively vintage, that is, it always reports the year of the harvest on the label.
• The white Alta Langa has shades of straw yellow to intense gold and aromas reminiscent of white fruit and citrus fruits with hints of bread crust. It is harmonious on the palate, characterized by a delicate flavor.
• Alta Langa rosé has a blush pink color or more marked when young, the aromatic intensity typical of Pinot Noir, with aromas ranging from grapefruit to spices, a balanced, broad and long taste in which the characteristic flavor is found of the Alta Langa Docg.
Hazelnuts of the Alta Langa of Piedmont: 100% organic hazelnuts
About 7000 hectares of hazelnut cultivation in the province of Cuneo, more than a third is located in the Langhe, with record peaks in the Cortemiliese, for a total production of almost 80 thousand quintals per year.
The variety present in the area is the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe (belonging to the Corylius Avellana species), appreciated for the delicacy of its flavor and also for the ease of calibration, the excellent peelability, the good yield to the shelled and the marked aptitude for shelf life .
In fact, as early as the last century, the Turin pastry chefs, first of all Michele Prochet, had discovered the organoleptic qualities of hazelnuts and had included it as an essential ingredient in that particular type of chocolate known as the gianduja. Since then it has been a growing consensus and the demand for raw materials has prompted farmers, in the 1930s, to plant the first hazelnut groves of a certain size.
To protect the product, due to the ruthless foreign competition, a ministerial decree of 2 December 1993 intervened which recognized the Protected Geographical Indication with the name of Piedmont Hazelnut destined for the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe cultivar.
The hazel groves extend over a hilly belt ranging from 250 to 700 meters and have largely occupied marginal areas unsuitable for viticulture.
In Cortemilia and Alba the hazelnut has created small and medium-sized industrial laboratories specialized in drying and shelling, the plants extend largely on the hills, almost all in the territory of the Mountain Community
Alta Langa, which has been managing an experimental company in Cravanzana since 1975 with the collaboration of the Department of Tree Crops of the University of Turin.