Truffles on Billionaire’s Farm Fuel South African Industry

The fungi are ugly, wrinkly and smelly, but the Jack Russell-cross named Clyde who discovered the first black winter truffle in South Africa’s Western Cape province has helped confirm the country can grow these valuable tubers.

Clyde’s 200-gram (7-ounce) black truffle had been growing for six years under an oak tree on the Altima wine farm near Franschhoek owned by billionaire Johann Rupert, chairman of luxury-goods maker Cie Financiere Richemont SA. Cape Town-based Woodford Truffles (Pty) Ltd., the company that inoculated English oaks with mycelium spores and planted them in Altima’s orchards in 2009, thinks South Africa can reach annual sales of 250 million rand ($19.3 million) within 10 years.