Nocciola del Piemonte

Appearance & taste

The nut is spherical or partly spherical and three-lobed, varies in size and mostly measures 17 to 21 mm. The shell is of medium thickness, medium-strong in colour and hardly shiny, felty at the tip and with many inconspicuous stripes. The kernel is spherical, tetrahedral or occasionally ovoid, darker than the shell, mostly covered with fibres and furrowed. Its seed skin (perisperm) is of medium thickness and comes off very easily during roasting. The kernel is firm and crunchy; the specification describes its flavour and aroma as extremely fine and long-lasting. After shelling, 40 to 50 % of the weight remains.

There are six product categories: whole hazelnuts in the shell, shelled hazelnuts, roasted hazelnuts, and granules (1 to 12 mm), flour (250 µm to 1 mm) and paste (below 250 µm) ground from roasted nuts. The pack shows the name, “IGP” and the harvest year. If the nuts come only from the Langhe, “delle Langhe” may be added.

Production

The orchards lie in the area and are entered in a register kept by the inspection body. The hazels are grown with a single trunk or as a bush, with 200 to 500 plants per hectare; orchards planted before 2 December 1993 may have up to 650. At most 3,500 kg per hectare are harvested.

Nuts in the shell are only cleaned, sorted and dried so that they keep longer. They are sold in cloth sacks, loose only when sold by the producer to the first buyer, and must be packed by 31 December of the year after the harvest. Shelled, roasted and ground nuts are sold only packed.

Origin & history

The growing area consists of hills and mountains, valleys and areas at the foot of the mountains at 150 to 800 m altitude. It rains a lot, about 900 mm a year, and the slopes are quite steep; the soils are therefore rather infertile, poor in organic matter and nutrients. According to the specification, it is precisely under these conditions that the variety develops its best characteristics. Attempts to grow it in other Italian hazelnut areas failed because it did not develop the same characteristics there.

The Tonda Gentile Trilobata variety has been grown continuously in Piedmont since the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century the hazelnut was already well known. In the second half of the century the first Italian confectionery companies were founded and trade took off: small businesses, mostly chocolate makers, bought the harvest of a few thousand quintals in the shell and shelled it themselves. According to the specification, the confectionery industry values the round shape, the high yield in shelling and roasting and the ease with which the seed skin comes off. As early as the beginning of the 20th century the hazelnut was exported to Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Chile, El Salvador and Japan, among other countries.