Buzet truffle festival closes Istria's season this weekend
The Istrian Truffle Festival runs 7-8 November in Buzet, with a mountain-bike-and-trekking truffle hunt, tastings and the closing weekend of a season that began in September.
The Istrian Truffle Festival closes Croatia's white truffle season in Buzet on 7 and 8 November, the last of a run of tastings and festivals that opened in the Motovun forest in September.
The two-day event, listed by the Istria Tourist Board as running from 7 to 8 November, brings a truffle exhibition, tastings and the sale of fresh truffles and truffle products to Buzet's old town. A "Truffle Hunt" race, combining mountain biking with trekking through the surrounding hills, runs alongside a culinary show called Buzet na pjatu, live music and activities for children.
A season that runs to one weekend
Istria finishes its truffle season the way it started: dogs, mud and Teran.
The tourist board lists the wider Istrian White Truffle Days as running from 5 September to 8 November 2026, opening in the Motovun forest and closing in Buzet. In between, Zigante Truffle Days in nearby Livade offered free tastings every Saturday and Sunday from 3 October to 1 November, and Motovun's own Teran and Truffle Festival paired the region's red wine with truffle dishes on 17 and 18 October.
Livade has carried the title "Centre of the World of Truffles" since 1993, a claim built on decades of truffle hunters working the Mirna river valley with trained dogs. The white truffle, Tuber magnatum, matures underground in autumn and is dug rather than cut, which is why the dogs, not the festival programme, do the real work.
Istria's answer to Alba
Istria's white truffle is the same species prized across the border in Piedmont's Alba, where a separate fair has run since late September. The two regions compete for the same market and the same restaurants, though Istria's version leans harder on the forest and the hunt itself than on the auction-house prices that make headlines out of Alba.
Restaurants and konobas across the peninsula build autumn menus around the truffle, pairing it with Teran and Malvazija wines, prosciutto, cheese, olive oil, honey and homemade pasta. The tourist board's own advice is blunt: eat the white truffle as fresh as possible, shaved rather than cooked.
Buzet's festival marks the last confirmed date on this year's calendar. If the pattern holds, the next Istrian White Truffle Days will open in the Motovun forest in September 2027.
