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Lots sold for 287,500 euros at World White Truffle of Alba Auction

Xinhua, November 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Eleven specimens of white truffle were auctioned on Sunday to those attending the World White Truffle of Alba Auction in Grinzane Cavour, here in northern Italy, for a total amount of 287,500 euros (308,311 U.S. dollars).

A Hong Kong businessman invested the awesome sum of 100,000 euros (107,239 U.S. dollars) to acquire the final lot of a truffle weighing a total of 900 grams after a succession of ever increasing bids. Bidding started at 10,000 euros (10,724 U.S. dollars) for the fungus.

The Grinzane Cavour hall linked via satellite with Hong Kong and, for the first time, with a Caribbean cruise ship navigating towards the New York Bay.

In the Grinzane Cavour hall, Dong Zhenxiang, founder and owner of Da Dong Roast Duck, acquired another precious lot weighing 520 grams.

Particular auctioneers, including a gastronaut, a TV presenter and a comic, accompanied with charm and humour the prized lots of Alba white truffles and special bottles of Barolo and Barbaresco.

The 16th World White Truffle of Alba Auction was also attended by prominent figures from the Italian business community, local administrators and figures of the entertainment industry.

The event was celebrated inside a true historic-architectural heritage, the Castle of Grinzane Cavour, which last year become part of a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Grinzane Cavour is a small village in the southern of Piedmont region, famous for its castle, its wine cellar and the white truffle world auction which is held every year in November. Its name pays homage to Risorgimento statesman Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, who was mayor of Grinzane for 17 years.

The proceeds of this 16th edition of the World Alba White Truffle Auction were donated to the New Alba Bra Hospital Foundation. The money raised in Hong Kong, on the other hand, will be used by Mother's Choice to support orphans and young mothers in difficulty.

"We managed both to promote this marvelous part of Italy and achieve the charitable targets we had set", Tomaso Zanoletti, the president of the Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour, which organized the event in association with the Piedmont Region and the Barolo and Barbaresco Wine Consortium, said. Enditem