Sarteano · Crete Senesi
It isn't a trade you learn. It's a trade you're handed.
Three generations of truffle hunters, from the 1980s to today.
The story
Giannetto came first
Since the 1980s he has been out after truffles in these hills. Not as a job — as something you do.
Then Sandro, who grew up walking behind his father. Today they go out together, and his mother too: three people in the business.
And now Leonardo, fourteen, already Italian and regional under-14 champion with Nerina.
La Scintilla started when we decided to stop selling only fresh truffle and to start making things with it. Because the truffle we were finding was good — and the things on the shop shelves, which were supposed to taste of the same thing, were not.
The place
The Crete Senesi
We're in Sarteano, province of Siena, inside the Val d'Orcia.
Here truffles grow under oaks, and a truffle takes its scent from the tree. Under pine it’s fainter. Under oak it’s the one worth having.
The Crete Senesi are also one of the areas where the white truffle grows.
How we work
We find it ourselves
Sandro and Giannetto, with the cockers, in the oak woods around us. We don't buy truffle from anyone: what we sell, we found.
We choose it ourselves
The offcuts don't go in the jars. What goes in is good truffle, taken at the right point of ripeness — the kind you'd keep for yourself.
We make it within three days
Fresh truffle doesn't wait. It stays in cold storage two or three days at most, then it ships or it gets made into something — with our own olive oil, honey from a beekeeper nearby, butter from red cows. No preservatives, no colourings, no flavourings.
Plainly
What we don't do
- We don't have a shop. We're an agricultural business, and the way to buy from us is to message us.
- We don't have fresh truffle all year. It has a season, and when it's over, it's over.
- We can't tell you what fresh truffle costs before we know what we found that morning.
- And we don't put truffle flavouring in our products — not a little, not «just to help». If the truffle is less fragrant one year, you'll notice. We'd rather it that way.
If you want to know us, the simplest way is to come truffle hunting with us
Truffle, in all its excellence.