When you go to visit winemakers in Barbaresco and Barolo, you probably expect established stately families, snobbish talk and high prices to justify the extensive and inaccessible wine cellars.
Olek Bondonio is the antithesis of all that. Despite being “the guy next to Gaia,” he’s a straight-talking, down-to-earth man who just happens to make wine and incidentally has a passion for snowboarding.
Olek currently lives and works in a house (La Bercialla) that dates back to the 1800s when his ancestors made wine. As a child, though, he grew up in Torino, only coming to the farmhouse during the summer months. Before taking the reins in 2005, he travelled extensively to France (one year as an exchange student in Bordeaux) and to Australia and New Zealand for harvest. Starting with the two hectares of the land in the photo below, Olek now works six hectares of vineyards organically.
The six hectares are split over three different plots: Roncagliette (in the Barbaresco DOC), Starderi (also in Barbaresco) and Altavilla (where he has planted barbera and dolcetto.)
His Roncagliette vineyards (the initial two hectares) actually border those of Gaia. Olek has only good things to say of his more famous neighbour. “Angelo Gaia would be in the vineyards at 4 or 5 am, one hour before his team started, walking through assessing the vineyards. Many producers today outsource everything and they don’t even know where their vineyards are!”
Olek makes down-to-earth, honest wines. As a general rule, the fermentation takes place in large cement tanks, maceration normally takes place for about a month and the nascent wine will subsequently be aged in large wooden barrels (as in the photo above) until they’re ready for bottling. Along the way, there’s minimum intervention and very little sulphur; no chemical or oenological “make-up” going on in this wine cellar.
We tasted several barrel samples of the 2016 vintage. By calling them simple, honest and down-to-earth doesn’t quite do them justice; they’re wholesome, vibrant and expressive.
P.S. Top Tip: the Langhe Nebbiolo wine is great value-for-money. Unlike the vast majority of producers in the area who make a selection based on the quality of grapes, Olek’s Langhe Nebbiolo wine comes from high-quality nebbiolo grapes in the famed Barbaresco vineyards, but is bottled just a year or so too early to qualify as Barbaresco.
There’s no official website but you can find Olek’s wines in the UK through Tutto Wines and Berry Bros Rudd.
Visit: 8th March 2018
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