Bakari started from a complaint dressed up as an ambition: that good natural wine had become too expensive and too self-serious, and that someone should make the friendly, well-made bottle that was missing.
Backstory
The project was born from five wine professionals who wanted to offer something they felt was absent from the market. It is led by Raffaele Bonivento, a wine selector and president of the natural-wine importer Meteri, with winemaking handled by Stefano Menti. The stated goal is honest, well-made natural wine at an accessible price: easy to drink, democratic and free of cultural posturing.
The Region
The wines come from the Veneto in northeastern Italy, centered on Gambellara, the volcanic hill zone in the province of Vicenza, east of Verona, that is the spiritual home of the Garganega grape.
Vineyards & Farming
Stefano Menti farms his family estate, founded in the late 19th century by Giovanni Menti, where the roughly 7 hectares are worked under certified organic and biodynamic agriculture. He sources for Bakari from these family vineyards in Gambellara and from like-minded friends and neighbors who farm sustainably. The signature grape is Garganega, grown on the area's volcanic soils, alongside Durella, Cortese and Pinot Grigio.
Winemaking
The aim is wine that is genuinely natural but also easy to drink, with nothing added. The Confondo ferments spontaneously in steel and takes its second fermentation in bottle from the addition of dried Garganega must, finishing low in alcohol with less than 35 milligrams per liter of total sulfur. The Pinot Grigio gets a short three-hour skin maceration that gives it a coppery ramato tint between orange and pale pink.
The Wines
The Confondo range, made in both a sparkling white and a frizzante rosato, is the calling card: lightly fizzy, cloudy, low-intervention wines built for the table. The lineup also includes a still, unfiltered Cortese and other approachable cuvees, all kept deliberately affordable.
