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Les Crêtes is the Charrère family winery in Aymavilles, in the middle of the Aosta Valley. The village is the heartland of Torrette, a local red of the Valle d'Aosta DOC. Costantino Charrère founded the estate in 1989. Today it farms thirty-five hectares of alpine vines, about 49 football pitches, spread over eleven villages. Native grapes such as Fumin and Petit Rouge grow beside Chardonnay. That Chardonnay, sold as Cuvée Bois, put the valley's white wines on the national map.
Aosta Valley
The Charrère family reached Aymavilles in 1750, crossing the Alps from Grenoble. For six generations they farmed grain, walnut oil and cider. Then Costantino Charrère, once a gymnastics teacher and ski instructor, turned the household to wine. He registered Les Crêtes in 1989. The eighteenth-century watermill and the cellars on Via Moulins, protected as heritage since 1983, still anchor the property. His daughters Elena and Eleonora run the winery today.
The vines cover thirty-five hectares, split into about 180 small parcels across eleven villages. They run from Saint Pierre and Aymavilles out to Gressan, Sarre, Aosta and Saint Christophe. The slopes are steep banks of glacial sand and stone above the Dora Baltea river. Planting is tight, between eight and nine thousand vines to a hectare. Sixteen grape varieties grow here. Native Fumin, Petit Rouge, Premetta, Petite Arvine, Mayolet and Cornalin stand beside Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Merlot.
Two wines anchor the range. Cuvée Bois is a Chardonnay fermented in oak barrels. It became a reference white for the Italian Alps. Fumin La Cor comes from a single plot of Fumin, a native red grape Costantino helped save from dying out. It won Veronelli's Sole d'Oro prize in 1999. Around them sit Petite Arvine, a Torrette Superiore built on Petit Rouge, and the Pinot Noir Revei. A small line of sparkling wines, made by the classic method, is led by Reban Pas Dosé and Neblu Brut Nature Rosé.
Visitors taste at the Rifugio del Vino, a 170 square metre room designed by the architect Domenico Mazza of Courmayeur. It is shaped like a mountain refuge, with a folded metal roof and walls of glass. The windows frame the Côteau La Tour vineyard and its medieval watchtower. Tastings run by reservation. The shortest is a sixty-minute, three-wine flight at twenty-five euros a head. The longest is a two-hour walk through Côteau La Tour that ends with a toast inside the tower.
The estate follows SQNPI, Italy's national scheme for greener grape growing, and has run on solar power since 2007. Its bottles are being made lighter to cut transport emissions. Its stoppers are plant-based and fully biodegradable, with no carbon footprint. The approach set in 1989 has not changed: small parcels, steep slopes, and native Aostan grapes kept alive by hand.
Plate I · AOSTA VALLEY
Wine area
The valley's broadest sub-zone, where Petit Rouge dominates the blend and the Enfer amphitheatre concentrates summer heat.
Winery
Aymavilles, Aosta · Central Valley: Torrette and Enfer d'Arvier
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
3 experiences at the estate, checked by our editors. Booking completes on the estate's own site or on the platform the estate uses. We never take payment.
Tasting of three Les Crêtes wines at the Rifugio del Vino, paired with a guided tour of the working winery and the cellar.
Tasting of five Les Crêtes wines paired with six Aostan cheeses, with a guided visit to the winery and the barrique cellar.
Guided walk through the historic Côteau La Tour vineyard, a tasting of five Les Crêtes wines paired with a board of Aostan gastronomy at the Rifugio del Vino, and a final toast inside the medieval tower.
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Tasting of three Les Crêtes wines at the Rifugio del Vino, paired with a guided tour of the working winery and the cellar.
Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Chardonnay.
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Est. 1989 
6 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
