The totalsynthesis of natural (+)-varitriol (1) was accomplished by starting from dimethyl L-tartrate. The keyfeatures were a substrate selective and diastereoselective PdII-catalysed bicyclisation of unsaturated protected triol 9 followed by regioselective ring-opening of bicyclic skeleton 10. The absolute configuration of the target was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray analysis for the first time