Est. 1989 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 3 Wines Experience
Tasting of three Les Crêtes wines at the Rifugio del Vino, paired with a guided tour of the working winery and the cellar.
Book this experienceAzienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes
Les Crêtes is the Charrère family estate in Aymavilles, the central-valley village that gives Valle d'Aosta DOC its Torrette heartland. Founded in 1989 by Costantino Charrère, the winery works thirty-five hectares across eleven Aostan communes, weaving native vines like Fumin and Petit Rouge with the alpine Chardonnay, sold under the Cuvée Bois label, that put Aostan whites on the national map.
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Aosta Valley
- Est. 1989
- Tastings
- Tours
- Accommodation
- Booking required
Wines from Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes
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Wines for this winery are still being curated. Check back as the UK retailer selection expands.
Experiences at Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes
Bookable experiences, curated by our editors. External booking where marked.
Wine and Cheese Experience
Tasting of five Les Crêtes wines paired with six Aostan cheeses, with a guided visit to the winery and the barrique cellar.
Book this experienceCôteau La Tour Experience
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.
Book this experience3 Wines Experience
Tasting of three Les Crêtes wines at the Rifugio del Vino, paired with a guided tour of the working winery and the cellar.
Book this experienceAbout Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes
The Charrère family settled in Aymavilles in 1750, after migrating from Grenoble across the western Alps. Six generations farmed grain, walnut oil and cider before Costantino Charrère, a former gymnastics teacher and ski instructor, turned the household over to wine in 1989 and registered the estate as Les Crêtes. The eighteenth-century watermill and the cellars of Via Moulins, listed under Italian heritage law in 1983, sit at the heart of the property; today his daughters Elena and Eleonora run it.
The estate works thirty-five hectares of vineyard split across roughly one hundred and eighty small parcels in eleven Aostan communes, from Saint Pierre and Aymavilles in the central valley to Gressan, Sarre, Aosta and Saint Christophe. Densities run between eight and nine thousand vines per hectare on steep moraine and sandy slopes that flank the Dora Baltea, with sixteen varieties in production: native Fumin, Petit Rouge, Premetta, Petite Arvine, Mayolet and Cornalin alongside international Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Merlot.
Two wines anchor the cellar. Cuvée Bois is the barrel-fermented Chardonnay that became one of the reference whites of Italian alpine viticulture, and Fumin La Cor is a single-cru bottling of the native red that Costantino helped rescue from extinction, earning Veronelli's Sole d'Oro in 1999. Around them sit Petite Arvine, the Petit Rouge based Torrette Superiore, the Pinot Noir Revei and a small classic-method sparkling line led by Reban Pas Dosé and Neblu Brut Nature Rosé.
Visitors are received at the Rifugio del Vino, a one hundred and seventy square metre tasting room designed by architect Domenico Mazza of Courmayeur, conceived as an alpine refuge with a sheet-metal roof folded like a mountain ridge and walls of glass that frame the Côteau La Tour vineyard and its medieval watchtower. Tastings are by reservation and run from a sixty-minute three-wine flight at twenty-five euros per person to a one hundred and twenty minute Côteau La Tour walk with a toast inside the tower.
Les Crêtes carries the SQNPI integrated-production certification, the Italian national scheme for environmentally responsible viticulture, and has run on photovoltaic power since 2007. Bottles are progressively lightened to cut transport emissions, and closures use a one hundred percent biodegradable plant-derived stopper with a zero carbon footprint. Across each step the estate keeps the alpine focus that Costantino set in 1989: small parcels, steep slopes and native Aostan varieties saved for a Valle d'Aosta still made by hand.
Visiting Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Tastings
Available
Tours
Available
Accommodation
Not available
Booking
Required
Plan your visit
Località Villetos, 50, 11010 Aymavilles, Aosta (Valle d'Aosta)
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Plate I · AOSTA VALLEY
Azienda Vitivinicola Les Crêtes on the Aosta Valley wine atlas
Common questions
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Les Crêtes sits in Aymavilles, in the central Valle d'Aosta, about ten kilometres west of the city of Aosta along the SR20 above the Dora Baltea river. The estate looks out over the Côteau La Tour vineyard and its medieval tower, with cellars and tasting room in the historic Charrère property on Località Villetos.
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