The Family Savini and the truffle
The launch of the Savini family into the world of truffles began in the Twenties, when Giuseppe Savini, married to Luisa Balestri and the father of four, Vittorio, Argantina, Zelindo and Savino, who lived in Balconevisi, a village on the Tuscan hills not far from San Miniato, had a passion for truffle hunting with his faithful dog. A favourable area for growing valuable white truffles (which were not so popular back then), where the local vegetation, climate and expanses of hilly areas, which make the Era Valley one of the greenest and freshest in Tuscany, produces truly excellent truffles! This favoured his passion, since, without having to go too far from home, he could walk through vast woody areas, the so-called Tartufaie (truffle grounds, because of the aforesaid features). As it often happens, especially in the families of those times, such passion was soon handed down to his sons as well who, as they grew, began to go truffle hunting with their father. Maybe the least versed or keen of his sons was Zelindo, who certainly preferred game hunting, not least because he could earn a few more liras to indulge in the habits of a young man of the time. Zelindo would be the one who actually launched our company into the world of truffles. It was the Fifties, and Zelindo, back home after the end of the Second World War, married Leontina Chiti, with whom he had three children, and started to work in the estate of Villa Saletta at Palaia (10 km from San Miniato) as a farmer. With his firm, resolute temper, he soon became his master’s trusted man and was appointed to assist the bailiff in responsible positions and eventually became the estate’s gamekeeper because of his passion and cleverness. As well as monitoring the estate’s game preserve, he was the man in charge of escorting the illustrious guests of the estate, that at that time belonged to the Gambacastelli family, around the woods and find the places where they could hunt the best specimens living in the owner’s preserve.
Game and truffle hunting were the most popular hobbies in the countryside between Florence and Pisa, which taken together did and do make Tuscany a very sought-after and therefore widely visited region. There were plenty of game, oil and wine from the estate at the dinners and lunches set for the guests, but they were also served another fruit of our land, the white truffles! Not so well known, of course, but not unknown to the upper classes who came from Northern Italy, especially from Piedmont or Lombardy, who, after tasting the quality and seeing the plenty of those white truffles, and finding in Zelindo a great help in taking frequent and certain provisions of that delicacy, began to order them from him. The truffles that Zelindo found during the week or that were bought at Savini’s home, during their hunts, by the gentlemen who came to Tuscany or that were shipped by train, even if in fact one of the sons could often be found on those trains, carrying his basket of truffles, not just to deliver them but also to cash the payment straight away! Luciano, the second-born son, was usually the one chosen to go to Piedmont or Milan. It might seem he was simply doing a favour (a well paid one, of course!), but in fact that was just the beginning of our story … …the turning point was when Zelindo, with the proceeds from the sales of truffles, decided to fulfil a dream, replace his old Vespa scooter with a BSA 1000, a big motorbike that is very popular even now, so just figure what a dream bike it must have been back then!
But the hard-earned and much sought-after motorbike, which Zelindo used to ride around the estate of Villa Saletta, was disapproved of by the masters, who called him into their office and ordered him to immediately sell the bike they could not afford themselves. So it happened that, as a sort of truffle dog, he smelled the time had come to change his life, so he decided not just to sell his bike but also to give up his job and start a life as a full-time truffle seller!
He bought a grocery shop-cum-bar at Montanelli, a small village in the municipal area of Palaia, near Forcoli, a place where game and truffle hunters used to meet for breakfast at dawn, for morning snacks and long after-dinner nights. So he became even more familiar with the truffle hunters’ world as he lived in close contact with them from morning to night, and then he could simply sneak off to the back of his shop at the right time to buy and sell truffles, far from prying and curious eyes. Luciano, the second-born son (who at that time was a young pastry cook and a great lover of cooking), who obviously already had a passion for truffles deeply rooted in his genes, probably the Savini family’s distinctive sign, ran the bar with Carla, his wife.
But Luciano’s job was not just taking care of the bar; it was him who went with and assisted Zelindo in his visits to truffle hunters, in his journeys for ‘midway’ negotiations with traders from Piedmont or Milan, as well as helping him in his deliveries or visiting the local restaurants and delis who worked with truffles.
Histories continues …
Many years later, in the early Eighties, the family’s passion and experience had grown so much that even the truffle hunters who haunted the Tuscan countryside began to frequently visit Montanelli’s bar with their bundles or parcels of truffles. In addition, Luciano decided to try and cook the smaller or broken truffles (which would not fetch such a good price) in an old, makeshift kitchen, so as to make the most of his job and prepare those products which could offer a taste of truffle even in the least favourable seasons, and that’s how the first truffle-based sauces, pastes or creams were born.
The result can be summed up in the fact that, after less than one month’s trials and tests, with the customers trying out such products as ’guinea pigs’ (lucky them!), the Savini family bought some property in the village of Forcoli and set up a kitchen to start a real truffle-processing business!
In 1984, they began producing about 3 or 4 truffle-based products bearing their name, while keeping selling fresh truffles, and even today that process goes on with the same methods and the same philosophy, in perfect keeping with the natural features of truffles.
The kitchen, still personally run by Chef Luciano, who still prepares his products without any industrial machinery but just 8 burners, as in the kitchens of the most important restaurants in Italy and abroad. Only Tuscan truffles are used (most of them come from San Miniato, Palaia, Volterra), and no stocks are kept, the products are cooked just after the orders come in (this is easily proven by the fact that the jars bear the day/month/year of production), and the customers are personally taken care of all over the world.
On 24th September, 2006, we came back to our roots, where it all began, the Montanelli bar, which we have turned into our new premises where we carry on with the business started by Zelindo, with an innovative twist, where we can be visited any day during opening hours or, by appointment, during our tasting evenings when we offer the widest range of truffle tasting experiences.
Piazza D’Ascanio Loc. MONTANELLI
56036 FORCOLI (PI)
Tel. +39 0587 628037
website: www.savinitartufi.it
contact: info@savinitartufi.it