Terraced vineyard rows rising out of the morning fog above the valley

Azienda vinicola · above Locarno, Ticino

Grown on stone.
Raised in patience.

Twenty-six dry-stone terraces of Merlot, farmed by one family since 1962. We make three wines a year, and none of them in a hurry.

Taste with usThe wines →
410 m A.S.L.MERLOT DEL TICINO

The year of the vineyard

Everything we bottle happens first on the hill.

Scroll through the year the way we live it — slowly.

I · MARCH — APRIL

Bud break

The vines wake before we do. Green knuckles push through wood our grandfather trained, and for three weeks we think about frost and very little else.

IIIIIIIVV

The wines

Three wines. No hurry in any of them.

Open a bottle's tasting sheet — it's the same card we pour from at the granite table.

Tastings & visits

Come up the hill. We'll open something.

Groups of two to eight. Hosted in Italian, English or German — the evening follows your language.

Note a visit

The cellar & the glass · CHF 35.– per person

Guests
2 guests

Two to eight — the table is granite, not endless.

We host in

Nothing to pay now — this is a request, answered by a person.

Vineyard terraces held by dry stone wallsThe stone rustico on the upper terrace

THE WALLS, DRY-LAID 1962 — STILL STANDING

The ronco

In Ticino, a terraced vineyard is called a ronco. Ours is also called home.

Emilio Ferrari laid the first walls above Locarno in 1962 — granite carried up by hand, one course a day, vines the day the mortar would have dried, if he had used any. His daughter planted the two highest terraces. Her sons prune all twenty-six now, with his knife.

Nothing here is efficient. The rows are too narrow for machines, the slope is unreasonable, and the yield would make an agronomist wince. We keep it this way on purpose: the stone holds the day's heat deep into the night, and the wine tastes of that patience.

Half our visitors arrive from beyond the Alps, so the family — like this site — speaks Italian, English and German. Ask in any of them; the answer comes with a glass.

first walls
1962
first walls
terraces
26
terraces
generations
3
generations

Where to find us

Small production travels a short way.

Around nine thousand bottles a year, most of them drunk within sight of the vineyard. These cellars and counters carry the rest.

  • 01
    Enoteca al LagoLocarno · under the arcades
  • 02
    Bottega Vini & FormaggiAscona · old town
  • 03
    Mercato del SabatoBellinzona · our stand, Sept – Nov
  • 04
    Weinhandlung zum TurmZürich · Kreis 1
  • 05
    The cellar doorBrione s. Minusio · most days, ring first
Ronco

Grown on stone. Raised in patience.

The cellar door

Azienda Vinicola Ronco
Via dei Tralci 14
6645 Brione sopra Minusio
above Locarno · Ticino

Write, call, climb

cantina@ronco.example
+41 91 000 00 23

Cellar door: Tue – Sat, 10:00 – 18:00

© 2026 AZIENDA VINICOLA RONCO — A FICTIONAL WINERY, DESIGNED AS A DEMOIT · EN · DE
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