IDENTITY
Ours is a story about tradition, passion and innovation.
From the historical roots of the Charrère family to the creation of a wine that tells the story of the Aosta Valley.
The Roots of the Charrère Family
The Charrère family is a family with deep roots and ancient traditions. In 1750 they emigrated from Grenoble, France, on the border with Haute-Savoie, to Aymavilles in the Aosta Valley.
In 1800 he built the family’s historic building decreed in 1983 “of particularly important historical-artistic interest pursuant to the law of 01/06/1939 No. 1089” and today protected by the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Aosta Valley as the historical heritage of the community.
In addition to the historic cellars, the property houses the cor with its stone millstones for pressing walnut oil, the mills for grinding rye, and various original tools for cider and wine production, all in excellent condition.
The cor, in local architecture, was the interior space of a building reserved for food production and exchange. This environment played a strategic role in the economy of the time, allowing the trade of different kinds of goods through barter, since monetary mercantile exchanges were scarce.
Dedicated to the building is our La cor reserve, which comes from the long aging of the native Fumin.
It was great-great-grandfather Bernardin who made the farming business professional; great-grandfather Etienne expanded it with cider production; grandfather Louis with milling local grains; and finally Antoine, Constantine’s father, specialized in the production of walnut oil and grains until 1955, when olive oil began to arrive in the Valley from other regions with fierce competition. The production of the Charrère household then shifted to the production of quality wines.
To distinguish himself, even then, Antoine initiated a careful process of customization at the level of cultivation and separate vinification of crus by indicating the geographic locations of each vineyard as well as historical, devoted to the preservation of native grape varieties, which would help enhance with wine, the Aosta Valley. Constantine, a professor of gymnastics (like his wife who also came from a family of Piedmontese farmers) and ski instructor, continued the work of his father Antoine and mother Ida, abandoning his profession to devote himself entirely to his deep passion, viticulture.
Vin o Cru de la Sabla was for reasons of the heart the first wine that Costantino decided to make wine in 1970 precisely as a tribute to his father and teacher, who passed on to him the art of winemaking. And it was La Sabla wine that became famous in the Aosta Valley and in Italy, when Costantino, hosted in 1976 on Ave Ninchi and Veronelli’s “A tavola alle 7” program, was invited to make a presentation and explore the then unknown and curious Valdostan viticulture.
In 1989 Constantine continued his business by transforming it into LES CRETES.
Costantino, following in his father’s footsteps, decided in the beginning to select and care for vines that would otherwise have been lost such as Premetta (Prié Rouge), a very rare vine on the verge of extinction, and Fumin, another “native” vine, saved from extinction and vinified with striking results, so much so that in 1999 it earned the attention of National critics with “Luigi Veronelli’s Sunshine.”
The Transition to New Generations
The baton passed today to his daughters, Elena and Eleonora class of 1977 and 1980 since they were little girls, they had the task in the Company of procuring ladybugs: yes, ladybugs! They were searched for and picked up in the mountain meadows around Ozein, half an hour from Aymavilles, placed in small cardboard cases and carefully transported on the day to be released in the vineyard where they would do their work devouring the harmful mites: the little girls, amused by much more than a game, just had to stop and watch.
This is not a fairy tale from a nineteenth-century book; it was a simple choice, made by the Charrère family, which has, always, throughout its history, minded concrete things.
The Les Crêtes company was founded in 1989 in Aymavilles (Aosta Valley) by Constantine Charrère and is now run by his family, which owns a historic 18th-century watermill and the ancient cellars of Via Moulins and has been involved in agri-food production for six generations
Eleanor Charrère
Elena Charrère
Giulio Corti