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A 1.5kg white truffle found in the Italian countryside will be sold at a charity auction in Macau where it is expected to fetch €150,000 ($299,000).
Truffle hunter Cristiano Savini displayed his precious find at a five-star hotel in Rome yesterday before it was flown to the Chinese enclave for Saturday's auction.
Savini's dog, Rocco, sniffed out the truffle, one of the biggest unearthed in the past 50 years, by an oak tree near Pisa last weekend, in an area of Tuscany where Cristiano and his father scout for truffles every year.
As the two men dug deeper, the dog went "wild", jumping from one side to the other as if to indicate they had to enlarge the hole.
It took Savini and his father more than an hour to get the truffle out.
A truffle of the same size, found in Italy's truffle town of Alba, was bought for €125,000 by a Hong Kong bidder last year.
- Reuters
