About Our Shop

Bonde Fine Wine Shop was created by owner-operator Bertil Jean-Chronberg and opened in July 2021, focusing on small-scale eco-responsible American wines made from Authors' winemakers. Bertil aims to elevate these exceptional winemakers to the world’s stage, and to provide education about wines from American Authors’ winemakers whose work is helping to safeguard the planet for all future generations.

Within the first year of opening, Bonde has received recognition in publications from The Boston Globe, Boston Common Magazine, Cambridge Day, and was awarded “Best Wine Shop” by Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston 2022.

About Bertil Jean-Chronberg

Bonde is only the latest chapter of Bertil's over 40-year career spent promoting sustainability in food and wine. An internationally-renowned sommelier and restaurateur, Bertil has worked in the industry in everything from Michelin-starred restaurants to neighborhood bistros. From an early age, Bertil was influenced by the absolute values of the beautiful, the good, and the true, thanks to his family. Surrounded by artists, craftsmen, and visionary enthusiasts, he will forever retain this awareness to serve and apply these values to his work, and to develop his own philosophy of the seven senses (sight, hearing, worship, taste, touch, intuition, and the sense of others).

Born in France, Jean-Chronberg immigrated to Montreal for his college studies, where he would devote himself to the art of food and sommellerie while incorporating an urban, eco-responsible awareness to his work. In 1995 he was recognized by his peers as one of the Quebec pioneers in the application of the concepts of "farm to table" and "sustainability farming. In 1996, he was ranked as third best sommelier in the world during the Canadian International Sommelier Competition (SOPEXA) and was awarded for his work to the Honorary Title "Oenophile Emeritus and Gastronome'' by the Canadian Journalist Top Food Critics Guild. In addition to running his own restaurants, including the Michelin-starred L'Allumette, Bertil worked closely with the Hatley Inn and The Hovey Manor (Relais & Châteaux), The Ritz Carlton, The Four-Season Hotel, Chateau Lake Louise (Canadian Pacific/Fairmont), Radio Canada TV (TV Show "attention c’est chaud") and the Quebec Government. Bertil also taught at L'ITHQ College (Montreal), UQUA University (Montreal), and Collège Lasalle (Concordia University Montreal).

After moving to Boston in 2000 to join his future wife, Bertil partnered with Frank McClelland and Geoff Gardner of L’Espalier to open Sel de la Terre. In 2007 he opened The Beehive in Boston’s South End, and in 2013 he opened Beat Hotel in Harvard Square in Cambridge. He was nominated in 2013 by ZAGAT one of the 12 "Boston Power Players to Watch" and in 2014 by The Boston Business Journal for one of the three "Most Admired Restaurants".  

In 2018, Bertil left the restaurant industry to focus on “The Black Donkey Project”, which offers unique wines whose revenues support charitable organizations, such as the PanMassChallenge and No Kid Hungry. In 2021, he opened the concept store Bonde Fine Wine Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which now curates the finest selection of eco-responsible author American wines in the country.