It all lies in the search for the right balance, says Giulio Bosca, reflecting on his relationship with the mountains. A balance that, for someone who grew up at low altitude, can only come with time and experience… Through study, deep study, infused with passion, and through an education that is at once individual, cultural, familial, and social, extending beyond the ski slopes themselves.

Athlete, explorer and communicator. In the testimony of a man who for years sought balance on the slopes and around them, first in pursuit of time alone, then to develop his own thinking and emotional sphere, we find a lofty form of mountain life. A life capable of rhyming traditions and roots, outdoor experiences and giant slalom, words and practical action.

We isolated one story among a thousand paths, and just as many discoveries and meanings: a snow-covered biography that implicitly encompasses every cornerstone conveyed by the Altavia collection by Deborah Compagnoni.

As someone born outside the mountains, how, and how much, did mountain education shape your identity?

“I was born in Piedmont, among hills and plains, not truly in the high mountains, yet my education was profoundly shaped by mountain culture rather than by the territory surrounding my everyday life. I am not so much referring to the physical mountain as to the community I found there: the ski club, the coaches, the people… The mountains played the role of a true school of life, at times even more so than school itself or the traditional family. The mountains were my family, my parental figure in a broad sense. This is also why I believe I was never a conventional skier. I was certainly an athlete who tried to push to the limit. And because I did not have the fortune of growing up with continuous exposure to snow from early childhood, I undoubtedly did not develop certain automatisms that came naturally to others. I grew up among hills and plains, precisely, but the mountains were always there, and then, as my career evolved, I embraced them fully…”

Your family heritage is rooted in great winemaking tradition. What role did mountain traditions play, from the very beginning, in your approach to it?

“A huge role. Making wine, when you think about it, is very similar to living the mountains: in both cases, you are not the one in command. Nature commands: the climate, the soil, the wind. It is a relationship based on respect, not domination. I am deeply fascinated by the biodynamic sphere, as well as by agricultural spirituality: that knowledge, those practices that may even seem absurd, like burying a goat’s horn, but which, at their core, are a search for balance. The same kind of search that, on a sporting level, you find on snow with skis on your feet, or among the waves with a board. Different languages, yet kindred dialogues with nature. The mountains also taught me not to rush, to yield to time, to the seasons, even to silence. Winemaking is the same: you must wait, observe, listen. It is a tradition that makes you feel deeply rooted in the earth, that educates you in humility.”

Which place would you define as ‘your mountain’? And could you tell us about one detail you particularly love?

“Courmayeur is without a doubt my mountain, and the image I love most is the one that takes shape in winter, very early in the morning, when you are the first to go up the slopes. There is a unique moment at dawn, with Mont Blanc facing you, and the snow crunching underfoot, in the icy, almost cutting silence. It is an intimate moment, in which the mountain makes itself felt in all its power and beauty, far from the crowd and the noise: an almost sacred space, seemingly remote.”

The mountains also accompanied you in your academic journey: what was it like to explore other snows, different from the familiar ones, and other high-altitude cultures, such as that of the USA?

“My approach to skiing changed radically during my experience in the United States: a true revelation. Before that, I was almost on the verge of quitting, indeed, I thought I would stop and abandon any professional ambition altogether… But overseas I found myself thrust into an incredible, almost mystical chapter of my life. In the collegiate sports system, although not legally considered ‘professional’ at least at that time, everything was still pushed to the highest level: cutting-edge training protocols, a far more structured organization, a mindset that changes you. Under these conditions, your way of experiencing skiing inevitably changes as well. That experience rekindled my full passion for the sport. I also found my own way of living the mountains: a richer, broader way than before. In Italy, my adolescence had been almost entirely devoted to training and preparation; in America, I began to make room for other things as well: escapes with friends, camping, weekends in absolute nowhere, where the only thought was to enjoy ourselves together, exploring what surrounded us. Adventure, in the most beautiful sense of the word.”

You shared the slopes with your brother Guglielmo, a top-level alpine skier still competing today, and you continue to do so. Can you tell us about this shared journey, which you inspired and guided as the older brother?

“As the older brother, I obviously learned by making mistakes, and Guglielmo was fortunate enough to avoid many of mine thanks to the path I traced. In recent years, we have spent a great deal of time together on the slopes, training side by side, pushing each other, watching each other grow, and helping one another do so, both as athletes and as people. Beyond the recent past, the memories are incredibly strong: the ones that stay with you and end up defining you, defining your sporting passion. The first times together on the slopes, when we were trying to understand how the mountain ‘worked’; the coaches telling us what to do, and us, little by little, trying to do better than them… One image: we are both wearing the leader’s bibs of our respective youth categories. Two boys not born in the mountains, coming from a place where no one skis seriously… And yet there we are, side by side, achieving our first successes. Another image: the period when we began preparing our skis ourselves, hours and hours spent shoulder to shoulder… These are moments, simple snapshots, yet they tell everything. It is something that belongs to us, an immense bond that goes beyond sport: a connection made of layers that are not always easy to put into words, but that we feel deeply.”

Your path has led you today to the role of commentator and, more broadly, communicator, applied both to sport and to winemaking. What does it mean for you to tell the stories of the cultures that have marked your growth and maturity?

“It’s true: today I work with words, with language, and it is a new challenge that I have embraced with passion. I enjoy reading, writing, expressing myself: far more than I once did. I find it a way to explore parts of myself I didn’t know, and above all, to challenge myself in a different way. I like to think of myself as an ‘80-percenter’; I believe in the possibility of evolving and continually discovering new things.”

Which paths have you learned to recognize thanks to your life in the mountains?

“Different paths: those that lie beyond groomed slopes, competition, and standard routes. They are paths of adventure, discovery, autonomy. I chose to ski despite not being a mountain kid; I decided to go to the United States and then return to compete again at a professional level, something no other Italian skier had done before… I believe these are the different paths the mountains showed me, and that I chose to follow. They are neither standard nor codified. They are personal trails, built step by step, through your own experience.”