Ottin Elio, viticulteur encaveur

The company is the fruit of a passion: the passion for farming.
Where else could this desire to produce wine stem from? 


In 1989 Elio Ottin was an intrepid young man, unafraid of dreaming. After completing his studies at Institut Agricole Regional (Regional Agricultural School) at the age of 23, he acquired his first plots of land situated between the municipalities of Quart and Saint-Christophe. Due to the acute gradients and coarse-grained soil, this virgin ground was difficult to work. Nevertheless, in a relatively short time he managed to transform this terrain into ‘terroir’ which provided all the minerals and verticality that hallmark his domaine wines and form the true heritage of Valdostan mountain wines.

But it’s still too early to speak of wine. The farm as we know it today was involved in three sectors contemporarily: apple and grape growing and cattle breeding. It was restricted to small parcels of land and few head of cattle but with the right amount of determination it looked the right moment to expand the business. Apples were marketed directly while the grapes were taken to Cave des Onze Communes wine cooperative (Aymavilles – Aosta) and the milk was purchased by local dairies to produce Fontina cheese.

A crucial decision

In 1999 Elio made what turned out to be the most important and best decision of his life by resigning from his permanent job in the regional administrative offices in order to devote his working life to viticulture. His thirst to improve, his passion and enthusiasm led the company into expansion and the farmland quickly grew to a total of 13 hectares which comprised 4 hectares of vineyard, 4 hectares of apple orchards and 5 hectares of grazing land.
The project to build a new complex made up of a cattle shed, cold storage for the apples, a stockroom and house got under way in 2000.

It’s now 2007

Some dreams are so huge and precious that we jealously keep them to ourselves until the day we succeed in making them come true. This was the case for Elio and his dream – to see his name on a wine bottle and fill it with his essence: his very own wine. 2007 thus became year zero in which he produced a total number of 30 thousand bottles, including three types of wine: Petite Arvine, Pinot Noir and Torrette Superieur. His dream had come true.

New Wines

His range of wines broadened over the following years with the addition of Fumin (a native monovarietal wine) and in 2011 Nuances, a selection of Petite Arvine vinified in wooden vats. 
In 2009 Ottin wines featured for the first time in Cuzziol Grandi Vini catalogue, which manages the sale of wine on a national scale. Besides this important step, the new wine cellar located below the family home opened (originally the vinification premises were shared with two other local producers on Rosset Terroir farm in Quart). At the time this was still quite small yet well organised, but it finally took shape into what we now know as Elio Ottin’s wine cellar after extension work was completed in 2015.

His greatest success

When 3 additional hectares were acquired in 2014, the farm probably reached its ideal size, but attaining top quality is an unending path. By now however, Elio was not treading this path alone as his son Nicolas had now joined him at his side and this, in his own words, was his greatest success of all.