Boisset Collection, the leading Franco-American, family-owned fine wine company, and the American Truffle Company® (ATC), the leader in truffle science and cultivation in North America, are pleased to announce their partnership to cultivate Périgord black truffles at Raymond Vineyards in Napa Valley in California. The truffles produced will be marketed by Boisset Collection and ATC to both professional chefs and consumer home chefs alike. This special partnership is a marriage of Boisset's luxury wine and spirits, food, and home and lifestyle goods portfolio and ATC's leading truffle brand, advancing Old and New World traditions with the best cutting-edge truffle science possible.
"We are thrilled and honored to partner with Jean-Charles and his team at Boisset Collection," says Robert Chang, ATC's Chief Truffle Officer. "We're confident that our extensive cutting-edge science will help him realize his vision of producing European black truffles here in the U.S., in the same way that his vision brought his family wine business from France to North America. We look forward to forging and deepening our synergies for decades to come."
Périgord black truffles are among the most expensive foods in the world, with soaring demand continuing to far exceed declining supply. Routinely commanding over $1,000 per pound, they have been produced almost exclusively in Europe. Using extensive science, however, ATC has been producing this culinary treasure (aka black diamond) in many areas outside of its native European habitat, including Northern California where the wine growing regions offer particularly suitable climates and soil.
"We are ecstatic to partner with American Truffle Company and fortunate to be an early pioneer for growing Périgord black truffles in the Napa Valley," said Jean-Charles Boisset, Proprietor of Boisset Collection. "We have always believed in providing the very best, highest quality products and ingredients to passionate food and wine lovers… To be able to revel in the experience of cultivating truffles in harmony with nature; to be able to grow them on our own land and make an epicurean delicacy from the Old World locally available to the New; and to share it all with our guests at dinners and events is a dream!"
Cultivating truffles, like growing grapes, requires extensive science and technology. The key difference is while the science for growing conventional crops like grapes is widely available publicly, the substantial science for successfully cultivating truffles is not. ATC shares its proprietary scientific methodologies and data developed by Chief Scientist Prof. Paul Thomas by partnering with its client-partner growers to bring these rare fungi to the forefront of global truffle cultivation. Part of ATC's rapid growth, Boisset has been an avid supporter since 2010, participating repeatedly as a host winery for ATC's annual Napa Truffle Festival. Now, in 2022, Boisset has taken on the exciting mantle of truffle cultivation with soil preparation to begin this spring and planting to follow later in the year. Born in Burgundy, France, Boisset is no stranger to truffles. Recognizing that the success of growing European black truffles in the U.S. requires deep scientific expertise and a reliable, long-term partner, he will rely on ATC to lead all facets of his truffle orchard, including:
Boisset will complement ATC's efforts in truffle distribution by sharing them with their existing restaurants and chef clientele, at Boisset's Oakville Grocery, the oldest continuously operating grocery store in California, and at Raymond Vineyards and JCB events and VIP dinners.