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Here speaks the essence of what Nebbiolo can be at the highest level: precise, profound, with an elegance that reveals itself fully only on a second look. Olek Bondonio farms Barbaresco's finest sites with an athlete's intuition and respect for a family legacy more than 200 years old. His Cascina La Berchialla sits enthroned on the legendary Roncagliette cru, door to door with Angelo Gaja. Biodynamic viticulture, zero marketing, no tasting room – instead, concentrated work in sites that have written history. The wines are rare, sought after, and belong to the most exciting new generation of Barbaresco that Piedmont currently has to offer.
≈ Aroma: Herbs
In all wines: 2,865 Wines
More about Olek Bondonio
From snowboard to Nebbiolo vines
The story sounds too good to be true: a professional snowboarder who conquered Italy in that sport returns to the 200-year-old family farm and begins to vinify some of the region's most remarkable Barbarescos. Yet that is exactly Olek Bondonio's reality. The Cascina La Berchialla lies at the very top of the Roncagliette cru – the site that Angelo Gaja made world-famous as “Sorì Tildìn”. The neighbour is not just anybody, and the bar is set stratospherically high.
Bondonio's great-great-great-grandfather was among the co-founders of the legendary Produttori del Barbaresco in 1894. The legacy weighs heavily, yet Olek carries it with the lightness of a man used to spinning through the air. In his cellar, between the barrels, stands a real skateboard halfpipe – a detail that says everything about his approach. Here is someone who strives for perfection without taking himself too seriously.
Sites that speak for themselves
Bondonio's seven hectares are spread across Barbaresco's absolute crème de la crème: Roncagliette, Starderi, Altavilla, Neive and Catagnole delle Lanze. The estate has been organically certified since 2018, but the work goes far beyond that. Biodynamic principles shape everyday life in the vineyards, without Bondonio making a marketing spectacle of it. Marketing, in fact, is not his thing. No website, no tasting room; online he mostly shares photos of newborn kittens. The wines have to speak for themselves – and they do so impressively.
The Barbaresco Roncagliette DOCG 2023 shows the full finesse of this exceptional site: taut, precise, with a tannic frame that will carry it for decades. Those who wish to experience the format in a magnum will find in the Barbaresco Starderi DOCG 2021 Magnum a wine that translates the somewhat cooler, north-facing site into vibrating acidity and floral elegance.
More than just Barbaresco
But Bondonio would not be Bondonio if he concentrated solely on the great appellations. His Barbera d'Alba DOC 2022 is anything but a supporting role – it shows that great winemakers can coax something extraordinary even from supposedly simpler grapes. Fresh, juicy, with an energy that is addictive.
And then there is the Vino Rosso “The Drunk Fly” – a wine whose very name tells you that someone is at work who has not let all his freedoms be taken away. An uncomplicated red that still bears Bondonio's signature: honest, direct, with character.
The new Barbaresco generation
Olek Bondonio belongs to that generation of Piedmontese winemakers who do not see tradition and modernity as opposites. Alongside figures such as Roagna or Giovanni Almondo, he defines what contemporary viticulture in Piedmont can mean: respectful of the terroir, uncompromising in quality, freed from unnecessary ballast.
His wines are rare and sought after – not because he artificially restricts them, but because seven hectares simply yield only limited quantities. Whoever manages to secure one of the Barbarescos holds in their hands not only a great wine, but a piece of living wine history from one of the most privileged sites in the world.