Truffle Festival Canberra Region opens for 2022

The winter solstice on Tuesday, June 21 marks the official start of truffle season, and truffle growers, winemakers, restaurants, cafes, cooking schools, farmers' markets and more across the ACT and southern NSW are gearing up to celebrate the return of Tuber melanosporum, better known as black winter truffle.

The Truffle Festival Canberra Region will start with an exclusive cocktail evening at Sydney's Little National Hotel on Monday, June 20, where truffle dishes will be matched with award-winning wines from the National Wine Show of Australia.

The festival's signature event for 2022 will be a multi-course truffle dinner celebrating local food and wine heroes at Canberra's Hotel Realm on Friday, July 1.

The dinner will be followed by a packed program of growing workshops, truffle hunts, food and wine pairings, signature menus, cooking classes and chef demonstrations across the ACT and southern NSW until the end of the truffle season in mid-August.

Festival president Dick Groot Obbink said while truffles are available all over Australia, those grown in the Canberra region are prized by chefs, providores and discerning foodies because the climate around Australia's capital is so similar to the growing conditions of the French truffle region.

"Even better, Canberra is the only capital city in the world where truffles are grown right on the doorstep, so they can be harvested and on restaurant tables or in home kitchens within just one or two hours."

Mr Groot Obbink said another highlight of this year's festival would be a competition celebrating the unsung heroes of the season - truffle dogs.

"We felt it was about time we shone a spotlight on the super-sniffers responsible for unearthing the 'black gold' enjoyed by truffle festival visitors," he said.

"The dogs are always a highlight for guests to our farms so we've given them their own page on our festival website - a gallery of good boys and girls where visitors can learn about their super skills, and their embarrassing habits, and vote for their favourite dog to be in the running to win a pair of tickets to join a truffle hunt as well as 100g of premium black truffle."

For a full program, click here.