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The Alpine valley that connects northern Italy with the Swiss Valais and the French Savoie also offers visitors surprises. Who would have guessed that it is drier in Aosta than in Puglia, although four Alpine massifs over 4000 metres high with their glaciers and snow peaks determine the climate. It is also astonishing that the wines of the Aosta Valley are by no means cool, Nordic types, even though the highest vineyard is at an altitude of over 1200 metres. The Valle d'Aosta is visited by more tourists than it produces wine bottles, nevertheless the winegrowers today seek contact with wine lovers and traders outside the region. This report describes the development of the winegrowers of this peculiar French-Swiss-Italian borderland from self-suppliers and car boot loaders to representatives of a serious appellation.

Mont Blanc dominates the skyline of the Aosta Valley (Photo: Merum)

Snowy peaks, alpine flora adorned with cow pats and hiking trails on the edge of precipices are not really our passion. We are drawn to the sea, pine forests and olive groves. The short visit to the Disney Alpine village of Courmayeur was a sheer nightmare. The only thing they seem to do there is to rip off temporary city dwellers as efficiently as possible, and there is nothing left of anything real or down-to-earth. Ten times better a dorado carpaccio in a harbour bar in Livorno or Gallipoli than a frozen pizza with Löwenbräu in the shadow of Monte Bianco! But fortunately Courmayeur does not equal Aosta Valley, merely a multi-ethnic, interchangeable winter sports enclave.

It was after the lunch at the Jolie Bergère at 1700 metres, designed for the famished, that we really regretted having organised our itinerary so tightly. Pure alpine world begins there just behind the mountain restaurant. No cliché! The cool, pure, dry, spicy air was simply overwhelming. The plant world with varieties and blossoms, the likes of which we have never seen before, invited us to linger and contemplate. Unfortunately, we did not accept this invitation. Perhaps we should have just cancelled the next appointment and walked a few steps, maybe even a few hours, in this alpine world that seemed so pure.

Numerous buildings in Aosta bear witness to its 200-year history. The Romans founded Aosta - Augusta Praetoria - in 25 BC (Photo: Merum)

After our experiences in the Aosta Valley, we can now better understand summer visitors who are addicted to the mountains. The Alps are big enough, there are plenty of valleys and places where hospitality and natural meadows have not yet been trampled by mass tourism. On our tour through the Aosta Valley, despite the high season - with the exception of Courmayeur - we did not come into contact with any unpleasant phenomena of tourist origin.

Valle d'Aosta, a very different Italy.

The Valle d'Aosta is the smallest region in Italy and has many things in common with South Tyrol. Like the latter, Valle d'Aosta has had special status since the end of the Second World War, which has brought the region considerable financial advantages. Italian and French are officially equal official languages. Unlike the people of South Tyrol, however, the inhabitants of the Valle d'Aosta feel a strong connection with Italy. However, they do not speak French, but a dialect that is hardly understandable even for French speakers - the "patois".

Strolling through the traffic-free main street of Aosta, visitors are always tempted to make culinary purchases (Photo: Merum)

The Aosta Valley had belonged to Savoy since the 11th century and only became part of Italy in 1861. Climatically and culturally, there are many similarities with the Swiss Valais. The Augustinian Order at the Great St. Bernard Pass also links Aosta with its northern neighbour. The monks from Martigny, who have lived in the Château Verdun hospice (between Aosta and the Great Saint Bernard) for 1,000 years, have done a lot for the Aosta Valley and in the 1950s founded, among other things, the École d'Agriculture, today: Institut Agricole Régional. For lack of offspring, the monks now have to give up their position in the hospice after 1000 years.

The most striking feature of the Aosta Valley are those white peaks that catch your eye wherever you lift your gaze. The valley is dominated by four mighty 4000-metre peaks: Mont Blanc (4810 m), the second highest mountain in Europe after the Caucasian Elbrus, Matterhorn (4478 m), Monte Rosa, at 4634 metres the second highest mountain in the Alps, and Gran Paradiso (4061 m), the only four-thousand-metre peak entirely on Italian territory. These mountains characterise the region, the climate and also the viticulture. The climate is dry and windy, the grapes benefit from high temperature fluctuations. Winemaker Vincent Grosjean: "Even during the harvest we have extreme temperature fluctuations. At night the temperatures go down to 5 degrees and then rise to 25 degrees during the day."

But the climatic conditions are also strongly influenced by the Dora Baltea, which accompanies the Aosta Valley along its entire length. There are different mesoclimatic conditions on the two sides of the river, which the winegrowers have to take into account when choosing grape varieties.

Renato Anselmet: "We winegrowers of the Aosta Valley feel a close bond with our region. Without our work, this beautiful landscape would not be able to survive. We are also concerned with preserving the landscape, not just with producing wine. A cultural asset has to be looked after, and we winegrowers are aware of that."

Only the mountains have rough edges here

Although we often drive through the Aosta Valley on our way north and try to imagine the wines as we pass the vineyards on the left and right of the mountain slopes, we have never filled up with anything here apart from fuel for the car. We now know that this was wrong. But the idea we had of these wines was also wrong. We expected acidic, green wines, suitable only for washing down melted Fontina cheese on the mountain pasture by the fireplace. We were quite surprised to find that the Aosta wines, although grown at high altitude, are hardly ever thin or green and hardly ever have high acidity or bitter tannins.

Fontina is one of the most characterful cheeses in northern Italy... if it comes from the right affineur (Photo: Merum)

If the Aosta wines are somewhat less alcohol-rich than in more southern Italy, but nevertheless mostly full-bodied, concentrated, quite low in edge and without disturbing acidity, then there are several reasons for this. As little as Merlot makes exciting wines in warm areas, Cabernet is poorly suited to late-ripening growing zones. In the Aosta Valley, growing conditions change every few kilometres. If only one variety were available, it would only produce well-balanced wines in certain locations, whereas higher up, ripeness would become precarious, while in lower locations, over-ripeness would prevent subtlety.

Similar to South Tyrol, a whole series of varieties have become established in the Valle d'Aosta in the course of its history, all of which are grown only in a certain area of the valley. On the other hand, the entire Aosta Valley has experienced a quality boost in the last ten years. The wineries have been modernised and brought up to the latest technological standards.

Where are the acidic, edgy wines that one would expect from these high sites with almost extreme temperature differences? The majority of the wines here seem rather plump and round, even the white wines often lack acidity.

Daniele Domeneghetti (Institut Agricole Régional): "The wines of the Aosta Valley are very aromatic, especially the whites. The red wines are relatively light and have little tannin. This is due to the soils, which are very loose, sandy and stony. Many grape varieties that produce wines with high acidity in other regions develop differently in Valle d'Aosta. The wine clientele of the Valle d'Aosta does not like high acidity or aggressive tannins. The wines are somewhat similar to the wines from Valais, which also have low acidity. Even if we leave the wine on the skins longer, we don't extract much more tannin. Our soils just give these characteristics."

Vincent Grosjean: "We live in a valley surrounded by the highest mountains in Europe. They protect the region and influence our climate. Let's just remember that the middle section of the valley around Aosta, where the vineyards are 550 to 900 metres above sea level, is one of the driest areas in Italy. Here we have only 450 mm of precipitation a year. Mont Blanc keeps all the storms coming from the Atlantic out of the valley. In the mountains, we already get 800 mm of precipitation per year. All our vineyards depend on artificial irrigation. Even in the Middle Ages, farmers had to deal with these drought problems."

Variety of sites...

In Valle d'Aosta there is a single, comprehensive appellation, the Valle d'Aosta DOC, which in turn is divided into many small sub-zones. Like Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta does not have an IGT category. Until a few decades ago, predominantly red wine was produced; only in more recent times have white grape varieties been increasingly planted. Even today, however, the red Petit Rouge is the most widely cultivated grape variety.

To understand the diversity of the wines, one has to look at the Aosta Valley geographically. From an ampelographic point of view, Donnas and Carema, the last municipality of Piedmont on the border with Valle d'Aosta, belong together, since here, as there, only Nebbiolo is grown. Carema is only four kilometres away from Donnas.

In the Aosta Valley, Nebbiolo is called Picotendro (piccolo and tenero: small and delicate). There are two DOCs for Nebbiolo wines, the Valle d'Aosta Donnas DOC and the Valle d'Aosta Nebbiolo DOC for young wines. In Donnas there are only two producers who bottle Nebbiolo commercially: The cellar cooperative and Le Selve by Rolando Nicco, who, however, does not produce DOC wines.

The cellars in the Aosta Valley are usually very small. The picture shows Rolando Nicco's cantina in Donnas (Photo: Merum)

The sites of the DOC Donnas are truly spectacular. The northern part of the vineyards was built on an old landslide, where stones from past generations have been piled up to form metre-thick walls. In the centre of the resulting narrow walled plots, all the soil that could be found was collected and the vines were planted there. An incredible work of man from a time when wine must still have been valuable... Further south, however, already on the municipal territory of Pont-Saint-Martin, the Nebbiolo vines stand on narrow terraces supported by stone walls and huge boulders. Whoever produces wine here must really be crazy! "Crazy", of course, in the absolutely admiring sense.

A different kind of madness is displayed by some people who want to level this unique cultural asset with excavators. They have nothing more clever to put forward as an argument for this than the reduction of production costs. Fortunately, at a meeting dedicated to this proposal, the old, stubborn winegrowers rejected this plan in horror and indignation. So they will continue to drive into the vineyards on their three-wheeled scooters, tending their few vines and bringing the grapes to the Cantina Sociale with absolutely inefficient, painstaking manual labour. Thanks be to them! Rolando Nicco, the only one of these madmen who vinifies his own grapes, is right when he says that this landscape should be protected as a world heritage site.

Further north, in Chambave, there is no longer Nebbiolo, but Muscat. Here, sweet wines play the protagonist role. Further north, in the central part of the valley around Aosta, the red variety Petit Rouge dominates. East of the city, its wine is called Torrette DOC. Besides this, however, the Fumin and the white Petite Arvine are also at home here. The heart of viticulture is formed by the villages of Aymavilles, Sarre, St. Pierre and Villeneuve with autochthonous as well as international varieties. Dino Darensod, President and girl for everything of the Cave des Onze Communes: "We are here in the Torrette appellation. Eleven communes are allowed to produce the Valle d'Aosta Torrette DOC. That's where our name Cave des Onze Communes comes from."

Upstream, west of Aosta is Arvier, where, also from Petit Rouge, the red wine L'Enfer d'Arvier DOC is made. Wine has been produced in Arvier for centuries. The prosperity of the village is based on the exceptionally warm location of L'Enfer - at 800 metres above sea level. L'Enfer, the hell, owes its name to the extreme climatic conditions. There is almost no wind and high temperatures in this basin, as the rocks also reflect the sun's rays. The special microclimate led the inhabitants to cultivate vines here as early as the Middle Ages. The mostly terraced site is six hectares in size.

In the L'Enfer site near Arvier, the climate is so mild% that kiwi and other plants requiring warmth also thrive (Photo: Merum)

Even further up the valley are the highest vineyards in Europe, where the Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle DOC is made from the white grape variety Prié blanc in the two communities of La Salle and Morgex. The variety grows between 900 and 1200 metres, with the highest vineyards in La Salle climbing up to 1225 metres. On the extremely lean, sandy soils of moraine origin - 6000 years ago a glacier was still pushing its way down the valley here - the Prié blanc grows without rootstock vines. The appellation owes this special feature to the fact that phylloxera cannot survive at this altitude. In addition, Prié blanc is said to have a genetic resistance to phylloxera. Studies on this are being conducted at the University of Ancona.

In the past, the local winegrowers vinified the Prié blanc and either drank the wine themselves or sold it in demijohns to private customers. The priest of Morgex, Don Bougeat, was convinced that this wine deserved better and had it bottled for the first time in 1964. Today, around 200,000 bottles of Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle DOC are produced.

The vineyards of the Aosta Valley differ not only in altitude and soil composition, but also in orientation. In the central part of the valley, where most of the vineyards are located, this difference is particularly marked. Dino Darensod: "The wines on the south side of the Dora Baltea are more concentrated, while those from the north side are fresher and more aromatic."

Variety of varieties...

It may come as a surprise that Moscato bianco (Muscat de Chambave DOC) and Pinot grigio (Malvasie de Nus DOC) are among the oldest grape varieties in Valle d'Aosta, along with indigenous varieties such as Nebbiolo, Prié blanc, Petit rouge, Premetta, Fumin or Cornalin. Pinot grigio was already cultivated in Valle d'Aosta in the Middle Ages. In 1838, the scientist Francesco Gatta classified 62 grape varieties in Valle d'Aosta. In the second half of the 19th century, in the course of the new, terrible vine diseases (powdery and downy mildew, phylloxera), varieties such as Dolcetto, Freisa, Barbera, Grignolino arrived in Aosta from nearby Piedmont.

The fortress of Bard (Photo: Merum)

Today, however, hardly any of this Piedmontese varietal heritage remains. Vincent Grosjean: "In the post-war years, viticulture declined sharply, and most of the wine was only produced for home consumption. Of course, the quality suffered as a result. They mainly planted varieties that promised high yields. Finally, in the 1980s, many winegrowers returned to traditional grape varieties and planted Fumin, Cornalin, Mayolay."

The Swiss clergyman Joseph Vaudan, as director of the regional agricultural school in Aosta, introduced a number of grape varieties in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, such as those grown in Valais. Thus, with Müller-Thurgau, Chardonnay and Petite Arvine, as well as Pinot Noir, Gamay, Syrah and Merlot, a third group of varieties became native to the Aosta Valley.

A fourth ampelographic blood refreshment occurred at the end of the 20th century, when varieties such as Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon, Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon and others were settled - albeit without a large spread.

Vincent Grosjean: "For outsiders, it is perhaps difficult to understand why we grow so many different grape varieties. But each of them has its justification, each has its special characteristics, and each needs different growing conditions. Many of these grape varieties have only recently been cultivated again, they are still under observation, but some are already producing good results.

The Nebbiolo steep slopes of Donnas near the border with Piedmont (Photo: Merum)

Of course, it costs us a lot of money and requires a lot of space to produce and develop so many different wines. Then there is the fact that the individual grape varieties ripen at different moments. We need 40 days for the harvest. Müller Thurgau and Pinot grigio are the first to ripen, while Fumin is harvested towards the end of October."

Renato Anselmet: "We produce so many different wines because we have such great differences in altitude. I can't grow a grape variety that grows at 500 metres at 900 metres. Each vineyard has its own special characteristics and requires the grape variety that grows particularly well there. The grape harvest also takes a long time. I sometimes harvest the Gewürztraminer only at the end of November."

Costantino Charrère is committed to the old Premetta variety. It is said to be closely related to the Prié Blanc from Morgex. One Premetta clone makes white grapes, the other pink. But the pink Premetta is also very unreliable in terms of colour: "Last year, the wine did not have the desired and usual rosé colour, but was white. It resembled a Pinot grigio. We have been processing the Premetta wine into a Metodo Classico for four years. At the moment we are still working together with the Institut Agricole Régional concerning the spumantisation, but from 2011 we will elaborate the sparkling wine in our own new cellar. There are 3000 bottles of it. I have done a lot for this grape variety and saved it from extinction by making sure that it is again included in the Aosta DOC production regulations."

Costantino Charrére's top vineyard Côteau la Tour in Aymavilles near Aosta (Photo: Merum)

Fumin is also close to Charrère's heart, as he sees great ageing potential for this wine. Charrère: "Fumin is wild and not immediately accessible to everyone."

Expensive grapes...

Renato Anselmet: "Our problem is the high production costs. We have hardly any possibilities to reduce them. Only a little can be done by machine, and manual labour costs a lot. Our vineyards are between 600 and 900 metres above sea level and are often far apart. This means that we lose a lot of time. We need an average of 1300 hours of work per hectare, whereas in Tuscany 400 hours are common."

Gianluca Telloli (oenologist of the cellar cooperatives Coenfer in Arvier and Cave du Vin Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle): "The six cellar cooperatives are still relatively young compared to other areas of Italy. Before the merger, the farmers vinified their grapes themselves, the quality was rather poor, and almost nothing was bottled. In order not to lose more vineyards, the regional government strongly promoted the foundation of the cooperatives."

Dino Darensod (Cave des Onze Communes): "Our cooperative was founded in 1984 with the support of the region. It built five wineries at that time and lent them to the cooperatives. Even today, our winery belongs to the region." Gianluca Macchi, director of Cervim (see box): "There is a good balance between the winery cooperatives and the private wineries. Although the cooperatives often have a bad reputation, the wineries in Valle d'Aosta produce good, even excellent quality."

Vincent Grosjean: "A big problem for professional viticulture is the heavy parcelling of the vineyards. Since most families had a lot of children, the land was divided into many small plots, and if you want to buy a piece of land today, you have to negotiate with countless owners. It is difficult to expand one's farm. To buy five hectares of land together, we had to negotiate with 22 owners. That costs time and above all nerves. At the moment, prices are around 200,000 euros per hectare of uncultivated land."

Woodcarving is a common occupation and pastime in the Aosta Valley (Photo: Merum)

Full-time wine producers are the exception in Valle d'Aosta. This is often the case in economically difficult wine regions because they do not attract larger - for example, out-of-town - wine entrepreneurs. On the other hand, it is precisely thanks to the leisure winegrowers that uneconomic sites are saved from going wild. The Cinque Terre are an impressive example of this.

Renato Anselmet: "Only a few winegrowers pursue viticulture here full-time, some only bottle 1500 bottles." Michel Vallet (Feudo di San Maurizio): "Anyone who bottles over 50 000 bottles in the Aosta Valley is already a big business." Vincent Grosjean: "The Viticulteurs Encaveurs Vallée d'Aoste association brings together 36 small producers. Of these, 15 practice viticulture full-time. These are joined by the six cellar cooperatives. We also have the Institut Agricole and two or three small winegrowers who have not joined our association. So there are about 45 producers who bottle and market their own label. There are no pure bottlers who buy in wine in the Valle d'Aosta."

Grosjean, president of the Viticulteurs Encaveurs Vallée d'Aoste winegrowers' association, estimates that his members bottle around 750,000 bottles and cultivate a total of 100 hectares: "I'm very pleased to see that many young winegrowers are also joining us, who may initially only pursue viticulture as a sideline, but who knows, it could one day become their main source of income."

If you want to make wine here as your main occupation, you have to be really good. They have to be able to make a decent wine from their grapes and sell it at a reasonable price. Because only self-marketing protects against self-exploitation, even in the Aosta Valley! If you consider that the winegrowers in Morgex receive 1.70 euros per kilo of grapes and those in Arvier two euros, then it becomes clear that the earnings per hectare are lower than the costs.

Gianluca Telloli: "The yields per hectare vary between 7000 and 10 000 kilos per hectare. A winegrower can thus earn up to 17 000 euros per hectare." After deducting expenses, the winemaker is left with far less than ten euros per working hour. This remuneration may be acceptable for hobby winegrowers or pensioners, but it is never enough for full-time winegrowers.

... inexpensive wines

Wine prices here are anything but scary. For the red Torrette, the private customer has to reckon with between five and eight euros a bottle, for a Blanc de Morgex around seven euros. Considering the extraordinary production costs, these are exceedingly ordinary prices.

Mont Blanc (Photo: Merum)

Daniele Domeneghetti (Institut Agricole Régional): "80 percent of the wine is sold in the region itself, mainly to tourists. We don't need much marketing and external communication because direct sales absorb almost all the production." The Valle d'Aosta counts almost two million tourists a year. In summer and winter, they flock to the region for hiking, rafting or skiing. If each of these tourists wanted to take even a single bottle with them, there would be a dispute - more than 1.7 million bottles are not bottled.

So far, little is exported, even though the producers would absolutely not be averse to commercial contacts with foreign importers. The problem, however, is that they have no idea about commercial matters and marketing, since wine has always been carried out of their cellars by private customers.

Viticulture and tourism are closely linked. If tourism declines, the winegrowers are directly affected. On the other hand, winegrowers have an important role to play in maintaining the landscape. If the landscape of the Aosta Valley were not so beautiful, this would certainly have a negative impact on tourism. Gianluca Telloli: "Vintners in Valle d'Aosta not only have the task of producing wine, but at the same time they have to preserve the beauty of the landscape, which is one of the most important sources of income for the inhabitants. Without tourism, the wine industry cannot live, and without the vineyards, the landscape would only be half as beautiful.

Vincent Grosjean: "It is a great advantage that we have never had major sales difficulties thanks to tourism. However, direct sales are not the optimal solution, because our wines stay here in the valley for the most part this way. It would be important to open up new markets so that we can in turn generate new tourists. The wines should arouse curiosity in consumers about our region."

Costantino Charrère: "Until 15 years ago, most of the wine was produced for our own consumption. Only slowly did quality thinking take hold. But with these production costs, we can't produce anything other than quality, because we are not competitive with other wine regions in terms of price anyway. For years, the winegrowers didn't even think about export, but slowly they are starting to open up new markets.

In the meantime, the winegrowers have realised that they have to work together, and today this exchange works. We can learn from each other and also have to help each other in times of need. Here in the mountains, you have to rely on your neighbour's help."

Gianluca Telloli: "I see a bright future for our wines. This is above all because the Italian market has only been interested in us for some time and there is still a lot of sales potential lying dormant there. The wine lovers who buy Valle d'Aosta DOC today might have bought South Tyrolean wines until yesterday. We have to be able to satisfy the quality demands of these customers. Sure, we can still learn a lot from the quality level of our colleagues in South Tyrol, but at the same time we can try to arouse curiosity in consumers and encourage them to try something different."

The regional government supports viticulture and quality production with financial resources, which in Italy are only available to regions with special status to this extent. For example, the regional government helps private winegrowers to set up their wineries with a 50 percent share of the costs: We hardly met a winemaker who did not have the bricklayers in the house during our visit!

Buildings and equipment of the cellar cooperatives, on the other hand, are completely financed by the government and are used by the cooperative free of charge, quasi on loan (the only exception is the Cantina Sociale of Donnas, which was founded by the winegrowers in 1971). In addition, the region makes its laboratory available to all wine producers for free wine analyses.

The northern part of the Donnas appellation consists of vineyard plots% dug with bee's diligence into the debris cone of a distant landslide (Photo: Merum)

The wine industry of the Valle d'Aosta is one of the few examples where politics has triggered a positive development with public money. The Aosta governments do not intervene in the decisions of the entrepreneurs, they merely assist them. If a winegrower wants to build a cellar, the region pays half of the costs. If a group of winegrowers wants to found a cooperative, they are "lent" a cellar. The costly analyses that are indispensable for quality production are carried out by the region's laboratory free of charge.

Thanks to this policy, viticulture receives a massive boost, because not only is the disadvantage of high production costs somewhat offset, but competitiveness is also improved in terms of quality. Besides South Tyrol, Aosta is a showcase case when it comes to giving examples of exemplary promotion of viticulture and thus of landscape conservation.

One thing is certain: the next time our itinerary takes us past Aosta, we won't just make the usual Agip-Panino quick stop, but will take a real break, buy some Fontina, Nebbiolo and Torrette and maybe even indulge ourselves at the Ristorante AD Gallias in Bard.

Dora Baltea

The Dora Baltea is formed at Entrèves above Courmayeur from the union of two meltwater streams from glaciers on the Italian southeast side of the Mont Blanc massif. On its way to the Po, the Dora Baltea flows in an easterly direction through the entire Aosta Valley, bends to the southeast behind Saint-Vincent, breaks through the Montjovet narrows and, after exiting the valley, reaches Piedmont with the town of Ivrea. From there to the confluence with the Po, it accompanies the Canavese region and flows into the Po at Crescentino after a total of 160 km.

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