Olek Bondonio

Olek Bondonio works out of La Berchialla, the farmhouse above Barbaresco that has been in his family for some two hundred years: two hectares of his own around the house, plus rented parcels in Neive and Alba. A competitive snowboarder in his youth, he returned to the vines and bottled his first wine in 2005; an ancestor was among the founders of the village’s first cooperative cellar in 1894.

The vineyards see no synthetic treatments, and yields stay low. In the cellar, fermentations are spontaneous in concrete and steel, the Barbarescos age about two years in large botti, and bottling is unfined and unfiltered with minimal sulfur.

Two crus anchor the range: Roncagliette, fifty-year-old vines on the hill of the same name, and Starderi in Neive. Around them sit Langhe Nebbiolo, Dolcetto d’Alba, the Giulietta — Pelaverga Piccolo grown outside its home around Verduno — and the Drunk Fly, a Barbera bottled as Vino Rosso.