Feature: White truffle auction turns into contest of solidarity between Italy, China

This year at its 16th edition, the internationally famous World White Truffle of Alba Auction in Grinzane Cavour, which was held here in northern Italy at the weekend, turned out to be a head-to-head contest between Italy and China.

The auction hall was the Castle of Grinzane Cavour, a true historic-architectural heritage which is part of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont Unesco World Heritage Site. It was linked via satellite with Hong Kong, where a local businessman invested the awesome sum of 100,000 euros (107,517 U.S. dollars) to acquire the final lot of a truffle weighing a total of 900 grams.

Meanwhile, in the Grinzane Cavour hall, Dong Zhenxiang, founder and owner of China's popular Da Dong Roast Duck chain, acquired another precious lot weighing 520 grams, after a succession of ever increasing bids.

A fierce competition between Dong, Giovanni Rana -- the Italian founder of the line of food products which bear his name -- and the Hong Kong business community to acquire the most precious lots provided big entertainment to the auctioneers and prominent figures who attended the auction.

A total of 11 specimens of white truffle were auctioned for 287,500 euros (309,110 U.S. dollars).

"Every year since 1999, a satellite connection has linked some of the world's most important cities -- New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Moscow, Paris, Berlin -- to the auction. But Hong Kong has become a permanent plaza for our competition," Tomaso Zanoletti, the president of the Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour, which helped organize the auction, told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the event.

"Not only has Hong Kong proven to be very interested in our truffles and wines, but we have always reached extraordinary prices thanks to the Hong Hong auction," Zanoletti said. "We are pleased to be beaten by Hong Kong once again because this means that we have reached very high prices again and managed to achieve the charitable targets that we had set," he highlighted.

The proceeds of the auction will be donated to the New Alba Bra Hospital Foundation, while the money raised in Hong Kong will be used by Mother's Choice to support orphans and young mothers in difficulty.

Zanoletti said: "China is a huge country which in recent years has become a market with great opportunities for Italian products, including truffles and wines."

He underlined that truffles, "rare products of great prestige, a delicious status symbol," can perfectly combine with the Chinese culinary arts and enhance millenary gastronomic traditions of both China and Italy.

"I have led various delegations of Italian politicians and entrepreneurs to China and I know that they are looking with great interest at the Chinese market," Zanoletti told Xinhua.

Dong noted: "There have been great steps forward in the integration between Chinese and Western cuisine." He said there are many ingredients and techniques of the Western cuisine that Chinese chefs would like to study and develop.

For example, truffles represent an important tradition of Europe which deserves being explored, Dong told Xinhua. In the past few years, the Chinese cuisine has increasingly become renowned in the world, and the cultural meeting with Western culture can help further spread its internationalization, he said.

Grinzane Cavour is a small village in the southern of Piedmont, a region famous for its castle and splendid vineyards from which its select wines originate. Its name pays homage to Risorgimento statesman Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, who was mayor of Grinzane for 17 years and significantly contributed to the development of local vineyard management and winemaking techniques. Enditem