Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba

Each autumn, the Piedmontese town of Alba becomes the centre of the truffle world for the Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba, a festival dedicated to the prized white truffle, Tuber magnatum. Held across several weekends from early October, the fair draws truffle hunters, chefs and enthusiasts from around the globe to a region already celebrated for its wine, hazelnuts and rolling Langhe hills, now a UNESCO World Heritage vineyard landscape.

At the heart of the festival is the truffle market itself, where hunters bring their finds — accompanied by their specially trained dogs, since white truffles can only be located by scent — to be weighed, judged and sold at prices that can run into hundreds of euros per hundred grams depending on size and quality. Beyond the market, the festival includes truffle-themed menus across Alba's restaurants, cooking demonstrations, a truffle auction supporting charitable causes, and parades celebrating the region's medieval history.

For anyone whose interest in Italian food runs toward the genuinely rare and prized, few festivals anywhere offer as direct a connection to a single, famously elusive ingredient as Alba's truffle fair — a celebration built entirely around something that still, after centuries, can only be found by a dog's nose and a patient hunter.