Simone Calugi from “Selektia Tartufi”and how his passion for truffle was born.
We can certainly say: the Child, the truffle and his guitar.
Simone was a 10-year-old boy who grew up in a family of Tuscan truffle hunters with a great passion for music, and his only dream was to receive his first guitar as a gift, in order to start playing it.
That evening, his dad – Renato Calugi – decided it was the right time to satisfy his son, but the young Simone could only earn that guitar by hunting truffle with him, and so father and son set off for their first "truffle hunt" with their inseparable - a four year-old half-breed - truffle dog.
But sometimes the destiny amuses itself by complicating things: as it often happens in the Tuscan countryside, the weather conditions changed rapidly, and during the evening the rain started to fall lightly at first, but then heavier and heavier: in a very short time the two truffle hunters were both hit by a real rainstorm.
"I thought we wouldn't have found anything and that we’d have come back home “empty-handed” – Simone tells us today - I had my boots full of water and I couldn't walk, because they were stuck in the mud. My father is really passionate for truffles, but with such awful weather he was actually thinking of going back home".