Black truffle, and the trees.
The farm's second harvest: fresh Périgord black truffle in season, and inoculated host trees so you can grow your own. All from our own land in Hawke's Bay.
Black truffle, three ways.
Fresh truffle is lifted to order from our own oak valleys between June and August, then brushed, graded and sent out as soon as the courier allows — truffle is at its best in the first few days. Our truffle oil and truffle powder are made from the same harvest and sold year round. Tell us what you are after and we will confirm against the week's lift.
20g Truffle
50g Truffle
100g Truffle
Truffle Oil
Truffle Powder
Underground, and in partnership.
A truffle is not a root or a tuber, despite the name. It is the fruiting body of a fungus that lives wrapped around the fine roots of a host tree — oak and beech, in our case. The fungus passes the tree water and minerals it could not reach alone; the tree passes back sugar the fungus cannot make for itself. The truffle is what that partnership produces, a hand's depth under the ground.
It only works where the ground suits it. Truffles want free-draining soil and a high pH, which usually means lime and dolomite worked in well before planting, and a climate with a real winter and a dry enough summer. Hawke's Bay hill country can give them both.
Then it takes patience. An inoculated tree goes in small, and the first truffles, if they come, are years away. This is a crop measured against the life of a tree rather than a season — nobody can promise a harvest, and anyone who does is selling you something else.
When they are ready you cannot see them. They are found by nose: Buddy, our truffle-trained dog, works the ground under the trees through winter and marks where to dig. Lifted and brushed, a ripe black truffle smells of damp earth, cocoa and something close to forest floor — strong enough to scent a room, and strong enough that very little, shaved over something warm and fatty, is all you need.
Choose your trees.
All trees are inoculated with black truffle and grown on our own land, by year. Pick your species and numbers for an estimate, then send it through as an enquiry to Mark.
Cork Oak
Holm Oak
Southern Beech
From spore to harvest.
Inoculate
Young oak and beech are inoculated at the root with Périgord black truffle.
Raise
Each tree is grown on in our nursery by year until it's well established and ready to plant.
Correct the soil
Truffles need free-draining ground above pH 7.5 — we set out the lime and dolomite to get your block there.
Harvest
Years on, the trees fruit — and Buddy, our truffle-trained dog, sniffs out the winter harvest.
Fresh Périgord black truffle.
Tuber melanosporum — earth, cocoa and forest in one aroma, and one of the most valuable crops a paddock can carry. We sell fresh Périgord truffle grown on our own land, hunted through winter by Buddy, our truffle-trained dog.
Enquiries open June to August — leave your details below and we'll come back to you as the harvest allows.
Trees, soil, and what grows beneath.
Check availability.
Fresh black truffles are for sale by enquiry, June to August. Host trees and pre-orders: any time. All grown on our own land, in the farm's oak valleys.
Talk to Mark
Trees, truffle and the farm.