VALLE D’AOSTA CROWNS the region of Piemonte, transitioning from Italy into France. A former province of the great House of Savoy, the now autonomous region sets the limits of extreme high-altitude vineyards for all of Europe. The postwar generation had all but abandoned quality winemaking, and the wines of Valle d’Aosta had sunk to an all-time low. Only the rise of Costantino Charrère, owner and winemaker of Les Crêtes, unified this divided and neglected wine region and reprioritized quality wine production.
Charrère, a world-class skier and mountaineer, inherited tiny plots of vineyards that straddled mountain ridges and streaked up sky-bound peaks. Because of the limited (only 870 acres) and fragmented vineyards, winemaking was done at home or in a few cooperatives. Charrère’s decision to focus on multiple varietals, experimentation, and extreme quality caused many locals to view him as heretical and his lofty ambitions as unachievable. Les Crêtes winery was set up as a partnership among Charrère, the Vai brothers (local restaurateurs), and the Grosjean family, who had also been growing grapes for generations in the nearby village of Quart. A full-time winemaker by the early 1990s, Charrère cut his teeth on the indigenous and familiar varietals of his father’s vineyards, but he constantly peered over the Alps at white wine nirvana: Burgundy, home of the world’s most noble white grape. Charrère believed that his own mountain soil could also yield a world-class Chardonnay of racy minerality, firm acidic structure, and gentle time-proven evolution. The great white wines of Burgundy and their proximity provided inspiration, yet he never sought to duplicate the style of Bonne. Respecting the style of small-barrel fermentation and aging, Charrère and his wines gave a newfound voice to the great white wine terroir of Valle d’Aosta. Now boasting 45 acres of vineyards and having left his founding partners behind, Charrère and his family are the beacon of quality viticulture in the entire region and represent the undying spirit that is the independent vigneron of Valle d’Aosta.
The Valle d’Aosta is situated in the extreme northwest part of the Italian peninsula. The Dora Baltea River splits the region in half on the rising valley floor from the town of Donnas, rising past Aosta and scaling the heights of Morgex. Mountain tributary streams of snowmelt from the pure and lofty peaks of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn are the source of glacial moraine terroir (pulverized glacial rock from the ice age) and are the life-giving arteries to this extreme mountaintop viticulture. A terraced patchwork of vineyards guides the river north and is accented by the ramparts of once dominant castles. As the river wraps around Aosta, the 2,100-foot tower of Coteau la Tour rises in the east. This medieval watchtower sits atop the vineyard-shrouded hill that provides the chardonnay used to make Cuvée Bois. The colonists of the Roman Empire were the first to carve vineyards into the steep hills by grading small, level vineyard sites, using stones to divide the parcels and to adjust for the changing elevation. The effort to farm these vineyards is nothing short of heroic. Yet over the years, these stone walls have not only maintained vineyards but have saved the very terroir of the Valle d’Aosta from being washed away into the valley by the unrelenting annual snowmelt. The patchwork of vineyards created by these ancient stone walls have come to represent the Aosta people, as they cling to the steep hills they call home and as they coax world-class wine from dirt that walls and men have held in place for thousands of years.
Costantino Charrère’s unwavering belief in the potential of chardonnay to create world-class wine in his native terroir of Valle d’Aosta gave birth to Cuvée Bois. Employing the nontraditional farming techniques of ultralow yields and vinifying in barriques with extended lees contact, Charrère uprooted the long-standing winemaking methods of his forefathers. The gentle and integrated use of oak gives this Chardonnay a rich sweetness that, when combined with the acidity and racy minerality of the soil, makes a wine of evolving complexity and utter satisfaction.