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Red Grape · Aosta Valley
Premetta is Valle d'Aosta's palest native red: the rare, red-berried cousin of white Prié Blanc, an alpine wine of wild strawberry, iris and gleaming acidity, edged with a bitter almond-skin tannin no true rosé ever has.
Prëmetta (Prié Rouge) is an indigenous red grape of Italy's Valle d'Aosta, grown mainly around Sarre and the central valley. It produces pale, perfumed reds bottled under the Valle d'Aosta DOC subzone of the same name. Thin-skinned bunches yield a light, fragrant Alpine wine in the Aostan style.
Setting it straight
The anchor fact: Premetta's paleness is the grape's doing, not the winemaker's: thin, lightly pigmented skins over large, juicy berries leave almost no colour to extract, so even a full red vinification comes out only a few shades darker than rosé.
Taste · Where it sits
Forget scores out of five. Here’s Prëmetta described against grapes you already know.
The weight of a cool mountain wine, barely more presence than a serious rosé; a chillable red you pour by the tumbler on a warm alpine afternoon, not one to brood over.
The surprise of the wine: for something this pale the tannin genuinely bites, a dry, faintly bitter almond-skin tug drawn from the pink skins and tannic pulp, and the one thing that keeps it a red rather than a rosé.
Bright, tangy, high-altitude acidity sharpened by cold Aosta nights; it is the wine's whole spine, mouth-watering enough to read as sour and to beg for a wedge of Fontina or a handful of almonds.
Bone dry and raised in steel, all tart wild strawberry and cranberry rather than any sweetness; the fruit is sour-edged and just-picked, never the jammy ripeness of a warm-country red.
Key flavours
The map
Prëmetta is light to medium, soft tannin, mapped against other red grapes you can buy. The closer a grape sits, the more its weight and grip resemble Prëmetta.
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Serving guide
Serve at
14-16°C
Serve it cool, around 14 to 16C, the temperature of a mountain cellar rather than room warmth; too warm and the delicate strawberry fruit and gleaming acidity go flat.
Decant
No
No need to decant. There is nothing heavy here to soften, and air only tires the fragile berry-and-floral perfume of so pale a red.
Glass
Burgundy Glass
A wide Burgundy bowl gives the shy strawberry-and-iris aromatics the room they need to gather and lift toward the nose.
Drink within
2-3 days
Once opened it holds its bright, tangy fruit for two or three days in the fridge; this is not a wine that needs long air to show its best.
Cellar
2-4 years
Drink it inside two to four years of the vintage. Steel-raised on fruit and acidity, Premetta is built for freshness and gains nothing from a long spell in the cellar.
Where it grows
Italy's smallest wine region clings to terraces between 500 and 1,200 metres, where Prie Blanc, Petit Rouge and Picotener (Nebbiolo) catch the alpine sun.
The terroir
Premetta belongs to one narrow strip of the Alps and nowhere else, the central Valle d'Aosta, where some of Italy's highest vineyards climb the valley sides beneath the peaks. An early-ripening pink grape suits this cold, short-season place, finishing before the mountain autumn closes in, and its wine carries that altitude in its featherlight frame and gleaming acidity.
Aymavilles and the old vines
The terraced slopes around Aymavilles, just west of Aosta, holding the valley's oldest surviving Premetta parcels.
The grape's historic heart, where a near-lost vine clung on in old mixed vineyards; the wild-strawberry, almond-edged fruit grown here is the benchmark for what Premetta should taste like.
From Aosta down to Avise
The sunnier central corridor of the valley, running west from the town of Aosta toward Avise.
A thin scatter of plots on warm, stony alpine soils where these fragile pink grapes can just ripen; between them they add up to only a few hectares, most famously vinified in purity as a varietal Valle d'Aosta DOC Premetta.
Editorial
Prëmetta is the Valdostan name for Prié rouge, an indigenous red grape registered in the Italian National Catalogue under code 312. The variety is genetically distinct from Prié blanc, the high-altitude white of Morgex and La Salle, despite sharing the historic local term Prié. Documentation reaches back to the 1838 ampelographic work of L. F. Gatta on Valle d'Aosta vines and to the 1877 Catalogo dei vitigni of the Provincia di Torino.
Premetta came within a few rows of vanishing altogether. Prone to rot and fussy about the exact day it is picked, it survives on only a handful of Aosta Valley hectares, kept going by a small band of growers, and above all by one family, Grosjean, who vinify it on its own and have put the grape's old name, Prié Rouge, back onto a DOC label.
Premetta's near-extinction and quiet comebackPrëmetta is grown in a narrow strip of the central Aosta valley, with the heart of production around Sarre and small plantings in adjacent communes. It rarely travels beyond the regional border. Bunches are small and tightly packed, with thin, lightly pigmented berry skins; this morphology drives the wine's pale ruby colour and its restrained tannin.
In the glass, Prëmetta is light-bodied and aromatic, leaning on red-fruit notes of cherry and wild strawberry with a perfumed floral lift of violet and iris. The palate is bright and saline, with refreshing acidity and a slightly bitter-almond finish. The grape lends itself to early-drinking, lightly chilled reds; some Aostan producers also use it for rosato and, in a small share, for sparkling wine where its acidity supports a metodo classico base.
Prëmetta is bottled under the Valle d'Aosta DOC, both as part of the umbrella appellation and as a named varietal subzone. It sits alongside Petit Rouge, Cornalin, Fumin and Vien de Nus in the regional red-wine palette, and is one of the building blocks of Valdostan wine identity.
Good to know
Prëmetta is grown almost exclusively in Italy's Valle d'Aosta, with the heart of production in the central valley around Sarre and a handful of neighbouring communes.
Yes. Prëmetta is the Valdostan name for Prié rouge, the variety's official entry in the Italian National Catalogue. The grape has no direct genetic relationship to Prié blanc despite the shared Prié name.
Prëmetta wines are pale ruby and light-bodied, with cherry and wild strawberry fruit, a perfumed lift of violet and iris, bright Alpine acidity and a slightly bitter-almond finish.
Prëmetta pairs with cool-mountain Aostan cooking: seupa à la valpellinense, carbonade valdostana, chestnut soups, alpine charcuterie and Fontina cheese.
Serve Prëmetta lightly chilled, around 14 to 16 degrees Celsius, to highlight its perfumed aromatics and bright acidity.
Yes. Prëmetta is bottled under the Valle d'Aosta DOC, both as part of the umbrella appellation and as a named varietal subzone alongside Petit Rouge, Fumin, Cornalin and Vien de Nus.
Prëmetta is built for early drinking. Most bottles are at their best within two to four years of the vintage, while their fruit and floral character is fresh.
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Jump to the editorial guide for each style this grape turns up in.
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1 denominations
