Antonio Bonelli is a butcher in Cormons, in the heart of Collio. His shop is not an ordinary butcher shop—it is a place where meat is selected according to precise and non-negotiable criteria: only from ethical, extensive, local farms that he knows personally. For thirty years, he has worked exclusively with farmers he trusts, who preserve tradition and allow animals to live in a healthy environment.
Bonelli is an essential link in the supply chain that this project represents. He is the point where the work of farmers meets those who eat—the translator between two worlds that often do not communicate. His role is not merely commercial: it is cultural. Every time he explains to a customer why that meat costs more, why it comes from that specific farmer, why it has that texture and flavor, he is providing food education, he is telling the story of a territory. “More than selling,” he says, “I like to discover.”
It was his father who passed down this craft to him, along with a love for animals and nature. His father taught him to seek quality in the barn and in the good farmer, rejecting the logic of easy profit. The shortest path for a butcher today would be to pick up the phone and order cuts already prepared and cleaned—but that way of working, Antonio says, has no soul. The value lies in selecting the live animal and working it from scratch, accepting even the imperfections and waste, because it is precisely that extra fat that makes the meat tender. “Thanks to him, today I can look customers in the face and always tell the truth.”
What he preserves in his butcher shop is the very essence of one of the world’s oldest crafts: the ability to cut meat from scratch, to know cuts in depth, to know how to make the most of every part of the animal. The meat he sells comes from animals raised for many more months than those from intensive farms, fed only on grass and hay. It is mature meat that cannot simply be displayed in the counter: it must be worked, it must be aged, with the expertise of the past and great patience—a slow time that today’s society is forgetting.
Customers notice the difference themselves, from the very first taste: from the aroma the meat releases during cooking, from the texture, from the tenderness. Many chefs, including some Michelin-starred ones, choose to source from him—professionals who demonstrate absolute consistency between what they say and what they put on the plate. His meat comes from Villanova, five minutes from Cormons. People are amazed to learn that it is still possible to put a face to what you eat.
