World Truffle Auction returns to Grinzane Cavour on 8 November
The charity sale that closes Alba's truffle fair moves to its 27th edition at the UNESCO-listed castle, a year after its top lot sold for €110,000 to a buyer in Hong Kong.
The World Truffle Auction returns to the Castello di Grinzane Cavour on 8 November, its 27th edition, with the proceeds of a single Sunday afternoon going entirely to charity rather than to the truffle hunters or dealers who find the lots.
The auction is the formal close of Alba's International White Truffle Fair, a two-month market season now in its 96th year, but it runs as its own ticketed event at the castle rather than in Alba's town centre stalls. Organiser Enoteca Regionale Piemontese Cavour has run the sale for more than two decades.
A record lot, sold by satellite
A single truffle, sold by satellite bid, can turn one Sunday afternoon into a charity auction spanning continents.
Last year's edition, held on 9 November 2025, raised €502,000 for charity from the auction floor alone. Including a barrel of "Barolo en Primeur" sold alongside the truffle lots for €22,000, the day's total giving topped €1.13 million.
The top price went to a 1,009-gram triple truffle from the Roero hills, which sold for €110,000, the equivalent of roughly HK$1 million, to a buyer bidding from Hong Kong over a live satellite link. International bidding rooms, connected in real time to the castle, have become a fixture of the format, turning a single truffle into a charity auction spanning continents.
Money raised in past editions has gone to causes including Every Child Is My Child Onlus, the Associazione Emiliano Mondonico and a hospital in North Kinangop, Kenya, with proceeds bid from Hong Kong routed separately to the Mother's Choice institute there.
A single Sunday, a season-long market
The auction sits at the end of a season that AMUSE has covered as the fair's World Truffle Market priced the early white truffle at €350-550 per 100g, before cooler, damper weeks typically settle prices for the rest of the run.
Whether this year's single top lot beats €110,000 will depend on the same variables that move every truffle season: rainfall, temperature and how many serious bidders join the call from outside Piedmont.
