(27 Nov 2007)
November 27 2007
1. Wide of Hotel Exedra
2. Pan of Cristiano Savini, truffle hunter, walking into the room and taking giant truffle in his hands
3. Close up of giant truffle held in Savini's hands
4. Refocus from giant truffle to truffle certificate in the background
5. SOUNDBITE: (Italian) Cristiano Savini, truffle hunter:
"We realised after 15-20 centimetres of digging that the situation had begun to be interesting and consistent, so we continued to have Rocco (the truffle dog) digging, who at that point went crazy."
6.Tilt up of giant truffle.
7. SOUNDBITE: (Italian) Cristiano Savini, truffle hunter:
"We repositioned it on the scale, one kilo and 497 grammes. We looked at each other, me and my father, and we said 'it's a record, it's Guinness material'."
8. Pan from Savini Truffle Hunters' brochure to giant truffle.
9. SOUNDBITE: (Italian) Cristiano Savini, truffle hunter:
"The truffle will be auctioned, it'll be auctioned at the International Auction of Tuscan Truffles, and the charity associations which will benefit from it will be Telethon in Italy, Consortium for Children in London and Caritas in Macau in China."
10. Savini holding giant truffle being photographed
11. Savini holding giant truffle
12. Pan from photographer to Savini holding giant truffle
FILE - location unknown, November 6th, 2006
13. Wide of truffle hunter with dogs hunting truffles
14. Truffle hunter with truffle dogs hunting truffles
15. Close up of truffle dogs digging
16. Wide of truffle hunter and truffle dog digging
STORYLINE:
The biggest white truffle in 50 years found on November 24th near Florence in Tuscany, will be auctioned for charity on Saturday December 1st.
Cristiano Savini, truffle hunter, was hunting with his father and his dog Rocco on a Friday morning when the dog grew wildly excited because of the aroma of the truffle.
Savini immediately started digging, realising that what they had found was anything but ordinary.
"We realised after 15-20 centimetres of digging that the situation was beginning to get interesting and consistent, so we continued to have Rocco digging, who at that point was going crazy," he recalls.
The young truffle hunter said that they had to tie Rocco with his leash to a tree so they could carefully dig around the truffle, without damaging it.
When they got it home and weighed it, they started to realise what they had discovered:
"We repositioned it on the scale, 1 kilo and 497 grammes. We looked at each other me and my father and we said 'it's a record, it's Guinness material'."
The previous record truffle had weighed in at about 1.3 kilos.
After a few days of receiving many phone calls and several offers from buyers for the truffle, father and son decided to give the truffle to charity.
"The truffle will be auctioned, it'll be auctioned at the International Auction of Tuscan Truffles, and the charity organisations which will benefit from it will be Telethon in Italy, Consortium for Children in London and Caritas in Macau in China" Savini added.
The auction, which will be held jointly by Sotherbys and Palas Atenea, will take place in Florence with satellite links to both London and Macau.
The possible valuation of the giant truffle hasn't been made public and neither has the starting price for the delicacy at the auction.
But aficionados say truffles are sold in Rome at a price of 11,100 dollars per kilo.
Keyword animals wacky
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