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The earth’s pale marl, it’s gentle microclimate, particularly temperate due to it’s closeness to the river, make this land ideal for vineyards, where high quality grapes have always been obtained.
When I decided to be the first member of the family to dedicate himself exclusively to wine-growing and oenology, I naturally settled into a deep rooted tradition.
The great, great, great, great-grandfather, the general Como, was among the nine pioneers who alongside Domizio Cavazza, in 1894, founded the first Cooperative Wine Cellar, and ‘invented’ Barbaresco wine.
Almost a hundred years before him, Bernardo COMO used to buy and sell wine throughout the Kingdom of Sardegna, during the turbulent years of the Napoleonic wars.
Not only are we left with his wonderful portrait boasting a white wig, but we also inherited the historical documentation containing the bulls and papers needed for transporting barrels, checked by the Napoleonic authorities, who were then known as the “Tanaro Department” for a while, together with the French Empire.
Throughout the generations, La Berchialla was gradually enlarged, to be later shared and partly sold in the 1900’s, due to family evolutions such as marriages and individual inheritances.
Since then, the Wine Cellar that I, Olek Bondonio founded in 2005, includes part of La Berchialla’s vineyards, inherited from his father Alberto Bondonio, and the ancient wing of the farmhouse.
The farmhouse’s wing was done up and now hosts a small well equipped wine cellar where I work the grapes and directly produce wine, following every step of the procedures during wine-growing, vinification, ageing and marketing the wine, and the same methods are still carried out to this day.
Today the wine cellar also makes use of grapes that come from other vineyards in the communes of Neive and Alba, which I run personally.
The line of production still remains rather limited and exclusive in order to maintain the wine’s unique qualities for which it has always been appreciated when put on the market.