Learn wine culture Adopt a Cru In Aosta Valley
Adopt an Aosta Valley Cru and experience first-hand the cultivation, growth and production of a wine of excellence
Adopt a Cru is the Aosta Valley’s answer for passionate dreamers. By signing up for “Adopt a Cru” you can become a proud protagonist of everyday life at Grosjean Vins.
As an active observer, you’ll get to know the “practical” life of the vineyard and the cellar, following the plant’s growth cycle and important agronomic practices such as pruning, tying and harvesting. Cellar operations will hold no more secrets, and practices such as racking, lees removal, transfers and punching down will become less mysterious.
With Adopt a Cru you’ll follow the birth and maturing of the wine, from the vine shoot to the bunch and all the way to the final glass.
The adoption journey unfolds in several stages, each corresponding to a phase of wine production and winemaking.
The first step is choosing the CRU (Rovettaz or Tzeriat), to which you then need to pair a wine variety. You’ll then receive your adoption certificate, a plaque with the adopter’s name and surname will be placed on the chosen vineyard row, and you’ll receive a special bottle of the chosen variety. From that moment on, you can follow production in the vineyard and cellar by taking part in the most important moments of the wine season: pruning, from January to March; tying, in March and April; the harvest in September; and the cellar operations that take place throughout the year.
When, after so much care, passion and hard work, the wine is finally ready, you can collect your reserved bottles with a personalised label, simply by presenting your adoption certificate.
What
You’ll Receive
Personalised vine row
The adopter’s name and surname on the head post of the adopted row and on the adoption certificate.
A bottle as a gift
Immediate delivery of 1 bottle of an older vintage (selected from the private collection of the Grosjean family) of the chosen Cru.
Winery and vineyard visit
At any time of year (with advance notice), with a free tasting of 5 Grosjean wines paired with a selection of local specialities.
Stay updated
Regular updates and reports on the various winemaking stages, from harvest to bottling, so you can follow your wine’s story step by step. You’ll receive, roughly, a monthly update on your adopted Cru.
6 bottles
At the end of the subscribed annual cycle, receive 6 bottles of the new vintage from the adopted vineyard (you can choose the adopted vintage or the one currently commercially available) with a personalised label bearing your name and surname (some customisation is possible).
Cru
Rovettaz
Until just a few decades ago, the Rovettaz vineyard was almost entirely covered by mostly untended downy oak woodland.
With hard work, dedication and many long hours of labour, we’ve gradually managed to restore charm and dignity to this ancient winemaking site, particularly well suited to viticulture thanks to the constant Föhn winds, which limit the spread of fungal diseases. Today, with its 5.5 hectares, the Rovettaz vineyard is our most important, as well as the largest cultivated by a single producer in the Aosta Valley.
The site’s complex terrain provides an excellent home for some of our flagship wines: Petit Rouge (Torrette vigne Rovettaz) sits in the lower part, halfway up we find the best-known Aosta Valley white, Petite Arvine, while on the steepest slopes Fumin vigne Rovettaz has found its ideal habitat. In other small pockets we find other native varieties such as Cornalin and Syrah.
Cru
Tzeriat
Planted in the 1960s by grandfather Dauphin, the Tzeriat vineyard is the oldest we have on our estate
It stands at altitude, above 750/800 m a.s.l., in a natural amphitheatre that shelters it from the cold Aosta Valley winter winds, and which was already an important winemaking site for excellent wines centuries ago. The lords of Quart Castle, which stands nearby, grew grapes here in the Late Middle Ages to make the wines with which they entertained their most important guests. Gatta himself, the noted 19th-century ampelographer, listed the Zario vineyard (the Italianised form of Tzeriat) among the finest terroirs in the centre of the valley.
Recently replanted, it currently holds our finest selection of Pinot Noir Tzeriat. Along its base runs the elegant Ru Prevot, a path locals like to walk or explore by bike or on horseback.
