Di Barrò

The Barmaz/Rini family has independently managed the entire supply chain of their winery for three generations, from planting vines to marketing wine. The company is currently owned by Elvira who, in addition to working in the vineyards, handles the administrative side of the business and promotional activities together with her daughter, Francesca, while her son, Matteo, is the winemaker. Nestled in the Alps and bordering Switzerland and France, Valle d’Aosta is the smallest and least populated Italian region where Italian and French are the official languages. Di Barrò in the local dialect literally means “from/of the barrels” and refers to wooden barrels once utilized in the Aosta valley tradition for transferring hand-pressed grapes from the vineyard to the cellar; they were then loaded onto a cart and used to transport the wine to be sold. During village festivals, it was customary to directly tap the wine from the barrò which were carried on villagers’ shoulders to show off their strength. The word barrò also summarizes the origins of the company, as it is an acronym of the first letters of the last names Barmaz and Rossan, Matteo’s grandparents, who started the business in the 1970s. Matteo learned viticulture and winemaking from his parents who bottled the first vintage in 1999. They currently own 4 hectares (~10 acres) spread out over ten parcels and make 20,000 bottles (~1,670 cases) per year of Vallée d’Aoste DOC wines. They are passionate about environmental integrity, and, in addition to limiting intervention in the vineyards and the cellar, they have also become energy independent thanks to a system of solar panels.