Erica, Pietro and La Bidule
Two jobs left behind, plenty of tastings, and one decision made together.
We are Erica and Pietro, a couple in life and now also behind the counter at La Bidule.
Before opening a wine bar, we did completely different jobs. Then wine went from being a shared passion to taking up more and more space in our days, until it became the project around which we decided to change our lives.
Before La Bidule, there was us
2022 - We become sommeliers
Then Erica discovered sake
2026 - we take the leap
Erica comes from biomedical engineering. Pietro from the commercial world and mechanics.
We met, fell in love and got married while wine became an increasingly important part of our lives.
At first, it was simply something we enjoyed drinking and wanted to understand better. Then came study, travel, producers, bottles opened out of curiosity and those discussions that begin with:
"I think this..."
And inevitably end with:
"Let’s open it."
In May 2022, we both completed the AIS sommelier course with the Brescia delegation.
The diploma did not close a journey. It did exactly the opposite.
The more we studied, the more we realised how much there still was to discover: regions, grape varieties, techniques, producers and completely different ways of interpreting what ends up in the glass.
One of the most important lessons our training taught us is this: with wine, you never stop learning.
At the beginning of 2025, after a trip to Japan, Erica decided to explore a curiosity that had meanwhile become something more.
She studied with the Sake Sommelier Association and became a Sake Sommelier.
Sake then entered the La Bidule project naturally: not as an exotic alternative to wine, but as another world made of place, raw materials, technique, people and culture.
Today it is one of the most recognisable parts of our selection - and we are still surprised by how far a bottle can travel when someone wants to discover it.
At some point, we stopped asking ourselves whether it would be nice to have a place of our own.
We started asking ourselves how to make it happen.
In 2026, we both left salaried jobs and opened La Bidule in the centre of Treviglio.
We wanted to build the kind of place we would have loved to visit as customers: bottles chosen because they genuinely convince us, local products, sake, tastings and, above all, the chance to talk about what we drink without turning it into something distant or complicated.
Then we opened the door.
And from that moment, La Bidule started to belong a little to everyone who walks in.
All the same? Not really
ERICA
Precise. Curious. With a certain difficulty letting go of a detail.
At La Bidule, you will mostly find her at the tables, talking about bottles, listening to impressions and probably adjusting something that Pietro thought was already perfectly fine.
An AIS Sommelier and Sake Sommelier, she brings to the venue the same analytical approach she had in engineering - only with far more enjoyable things to taste...
PIETRO
Rational. Direct. Quick to decide - at least until Erica gives him a million reasons to reconsider.
You will often find him at the counter, among bottles, preparations and customers who came in "just to have a look".
An AIS sommelier, he brings years of commercial experience to La Bidule and one fairly simple conviction: understanding what the person in front of you likes is far more interesting than choosing for them...
Important decisions are made by tasting
On one thing, though, we are very similar: we are both rather demanding.
Anything that comes into La Bidule has to convince us.
We take turns tasting, discuss, change our minds and eventually choose together. We look for small and medium-sized producers, people with a credible story, wines with identity and products that have a reason to be on our shelves.
With food, we mainly look close to home, choosing producers from Bergamo. In the glass, on the other hand, we also like to travel far.
We are not necessarily looking for what is rare.
We are looking for what is worth helping you discover.
Two personalities, one place
Pietro makes a decision. Erica checks it again.
Erica suggests a detail. Pietro asks whether it is really necessary.
Then we do it.
La Bidule also comes from this balance: reason and impulse, precision and speed, two different tastes that have to find common ground every day.
Maybe that is also why we would never want to tell you what you should like. We would rather discover it together.
What we would like to happen when you walk in
We do not care whether you already know wine.
You can walk in knowing exactly what you are looking for, or without knowing one grape variety from another.
What we like most is when someone tastes something they would never have chosen, changes their mind, or leaves with one small extra tool for understanding what is in the glass.
And if they come back later with a friend or relative, even better.