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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: d:oug who wrote (61055)	11/14/2000 7:14:18 AM
From: Alex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116759

Gold is not worth its weight in truffles By Bruce Johnston in Rome WHITE truffles are now more expensive than gold as a result of an ever dwindling supply and soaring demand. At a specialist auction near Alba, close to Turin, where buyers in Tokyo bid via television as restaurateurs fought for prized examples, a record of a £280 an ounce was set. Yesterday, gold was being quoted at £185 an ounce. In the saleroom at the castle of Grinzano-Cavour, the truffles were protected by guards and those bought by the Japanese were taken to the airport in a security van. Lorenzo Tuffoletti, who runs the Caruso restaurant in Amsterdam, caused faces to turn pale when after fierce bidding he obtained a fine tuber magnatum pico, as the white truffle from around Alba in Piedmont is known, for £4,635. The example weighed only 497g, or just over a pound. Experts said the prices could be partly explained by the fact that auction proceeds would go to victims of the floods that devastated Piedmont recently. They added that public interest was at its height in late autumn, prime time for the white truffle of Alba, and when restaurateurs are prepared to pay high prices, partly hoping to receive media publicity. But specialists said that before the auction this season's prices had already made a marked and steady rise over those of last year, which had themselves reached very high levels. Unlike some dark, cheaper varieties, the better-tasting white truffle of Alba has resisted all attempts at cultivation. And as demand has shot up, the truffles were becoming scarcer. A few days ago, shops in Milan put the white truffle on sale for a record 12 million lire or almost £4,000 a kilo, or almost three times last year's average retail price. Franco Maria Martinetti, a Turin food expert who rears truffle hounds, was aghast at the prices, which he said were grossly inflated. He said: '"The top amounts paid by the bidders are always for very big truffles. Although these do not taste any better than smaller, cheaper ones, they make a bella figura." He said the other reason was that, while demand had shot up, the truffles' natural habitat was disappearing. Farming was becoming more large-scale and intensive, and trees under which the truffles grew were being chopped down telegraph.co.uk