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Napa Valley Features
Napa Valley Features
Under The Hood: A Napa Truffle Boom? A Landmark Discovery and a Growing Industry
Under The Hood: A Napa Truffle Boom? A Landmark Discovery and a Growing Industry
KRON 4 Live In The Bay
KRON 4 Live In The Bay
Napa Truffle Festival
The Press Democrat
The Press Democrat
A $973 fungus: How Napa's hills are producing truffle gold - and how you can get some
A $973 fungus: How Napa's hills are producing truffle gold - and how you can get some
The absolute highlight of the Napa Truffle Festival is the truffle-hunting demonstration at Robert Sinskey Vineyards. (The festival is presented by the American Truffle Company, which convinces Napa Valley landowners to plant black-truffle orchards—Sinskey’s will be the first to produce the fungus, beginning this year .) Why? The star of the show, Rico, who’s a four-year-old Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian breed of retriever. When he’s not digging for treasure, he lives in the East Bay with his owner and tartufàio (truffle hunter), Bill Collins, a psychologist whose day job is treating traumatized veterans. (Rico helps him out with that too.) We chatted with Rico recently about his work.
Were your parents truffle dogs?
Yes—my breed is from Emilia-Romagna, but my actual parents are from Sicily, which is where I was trained when I was just a little bitty pup.
How are truffle dogs trained?
The way they’ve been training my breed since about 1540: They would sew a truffle in some cloth and they’d throw the truffle for me and I’d retrieve it, and then they’d hide the truffle, and they’d say,
“Dove, Rico, dove?” Which means,
“Where, where?” And I’d go look for it. And then they would bury it, and they’d say, “Dove, Rico?” and I’d dig it up—dig dig dig dig.
Have you ever eaten a truffle?
Some of us like to eat them and some of us don’t. Sometimes, if we find undesirable truffles, the handlers give those to us; otherwise we just get a treat.
Which is what?
For me, organic buffalo hot dogs. It’s got to be a pretty darn good treat for me to not want to eat the truffle.
Do you need to be a Lagotto Romagnolo to hunt truffles?
Any type of dog can learn to do it. Really, what makes a good truffle dog is temperament.
You want a dog that wants to please and has a good sense of concentration. When I’m hunting and there are other dogs, I let them know, Hey, I’ll play with you, but not right now. When I hear the magic word, dove—it’s game on. Nothing else matters. That’s what separates me from the others who just hang out and eat truffle cheese. Which I do like, by the way. You got some?
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