The Truffle Shuffle!

We had a fabulous weekend and my truffle dinner on Friday was out of this world – although I learned something rather funny at dinner with my neighbours the following day.

As you may know, I travelled by car last week on a 9 hour round trip through wind, rain and snow to the remote village of Lesquerde in the Pyrenées to buy some rare black truffles. Truffles are rare because there are only found in tiny places which have the perfect soils and a certain type of oak.

During dinner I began to tell my search for black truffles tale when one of my neighbours suddenly said “do you know there are black truffles on the oak trees here in St Colombe and in your front garden is one of the best?!”

I haven’t been living here that long so I was unaware that every year some local truffle hunters pop by with highly trained dogs and sniff your oak tree roots and then split the precious find with the land owner. Ironically the truffle hunters came last weekend whilst I was in the south buying expensive truffles!! And so my truffle story bombed as everyone at the table had been enjoying free truffles at home all week from the front garden!

I was very lucky to taste three highly recommended fine white wines over the weekend all made from Chardonnay, proving to me that it is one of the greatest grape varieties in the world.

The first wine I tasted was a very complex 2005 from the bargain Burgundy A0C Monthelie ‘les toiseres’, followed by a classic Meursault another Burgundy AOC which, with 10 years age, was just stunning. However the most impressive the and best wine tasted was the 2002 Clocher ‘De Villar-Saint-Anselme’ from Limoux vigneron Maurice Lautard. Absolutely outstanding and certainly gives pricey fine white Burgundy a run for its money.


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