Giovo
Giovo is a scattered municipality in the Val di Cembra, in Trentino, stretched along the right bank of the Avisio stream in a stre...
Updated 18 July 2026
This season · July · Summer
What to do in Giovo now
The story
The story of Giovo
Giovo in the Val di Cembra, on the Right Bank of the Avisio
Giovo occupies the right-hand slope of the Val di Cembra, the narrow and deep gorge carved by the Avisio stream into the Atesian porphyry platform, linking the Trento plain and the Piana Rotaliana with the Val di Fiemme and Val di Fassa. Together with Cembra Lisignago and Altavalle on the right bank, and Albiano, Lona-Lases, Segonzano and Sover on the left, Giovo is one of the seven municipalities of the valley, a territory marked by steep walls and agricultural terraces shaped over centuries. The municipality is administratively a scattered comune: there is no single main town, but rather a cluster of hamlets spread along the slope at different altitudes, including Verla, home to the town hall, Palù, Ceola, Mosana, Ville and Serci, each with its own character and community, forming a settlement mosaic typical of Trentino's mountain territory.
The Vineyards, Wineries and Wines of Giovo
The stretch of Val di Cembra facing Giovo is one of the most suited to viticulture in all of Trentino, thanks to the terraces that have shaped the sunny slope above the Avisio for centuries. The main varieties grown here are Müller Thurgau, a white grape that at altitude finds ideal conditions to develop intense aromas and freshness, and Chardonnay, largely destined for the base wines of Trentodoc, the designation for Trentino's classic-method sparkling wines. Cultivation on narrow terraces, still often worked by hand or with small machinery because of the steep slope, makes viticulture in Giovo a high-maintenance activity, handed down from generation to generation on family farmsteads. Local wineries, both cooperative and private, offer tastings and direct sales, and the Grape Harvest Festival that livens up the village in autumn is the most heartfelt occasion to celebrate this vocation, which represents both an economic pillar and a defining trait of the municipality.
Francesco Moser and the Cycling Tradition
For many cycling fans, Giovo is above all the village of Francesco Moser, one of the greatest Italian riders, born in the hamlet of Palù di Giovo into a farming family. In his career Moser won the Giro d'Italia in 1984, three consecutive editions of Paris-Roubaix between 1978 and 1980, and the road world championship title in 1977, but his most celebrated feat remains the hour record, set and then improved in Mexico City in January 1984, helped by the pioneering use of lenticular wheels. His brothers Enzo, Aldo and Diego also raced as professionals alongside him, so much so that the Moser family has become synonymous with a cycling tradition deeply rooted in the village. After ending his competitive career, Francesco Moser turned to winemaking, a path that ideally intertwines his personal story with the wine-growing vocation of the Val di Cembra he comes from, and which still today makes Giovo a landmark stop for anyone retracing the places of Trentino cycling by bike.
Porphyry, the Hamlets and the Landscape
Beneath the vineyards of Giovo emerges the rock that gives character to the whole Val di Cembra: porphyry, a volcanic stone with a distinctive reddish-purple colour, quarried and worked here for generations and used across Trentino, and well beyond, for paving, cobblestones and cladding. Quarries and small porphyry-working workshops sit alongside farming as an economic activity of the municipality, in a balance that has kept ancient manual skills alive. The resulting landscape is typical of the valley: steep slopes cut by vineyard terraces, clearings of coniferous woodland, open-air quarries and, scattered across the slopes, the hamlets of Verla, Palù, Ceola, Mosana and Ville, each gathered around its own church. Moving from one hamlet to another means crossing a mosaic of farmsteads, vineyards and small rural clusters, with views over the gorge carved by the Avisio and, on clearer days, the peaks closing the horizon toward the Val di Fiemme.
History and Experiences
The name Giovo derives from the Latin iugum, meaning yoke or mountain pass, indicating a crossing point at altitude, and it appears in documents as early as 1174, while the pieve church of the Assumption is mentioned as far back as 1145, a sign of an ancient settlement tied to the valley's communication routes. For centuries the territory belonged to the feudal domains of the Prince-Bishopric of Trento, a condition Giovo shares with much of the Val di Cembra. Of that long religious history, what remains today are the Baroque church of Santa Maria Assunta, rebuilt between 1766 and 1774, and the ancient church of San Giorgio, testimonies to a devotion shared across the various hamlets. Visitors to Giovo today can alternate discovering this historical heritage with experiences tied to the village's present: walks among farmsteads and terraced vineyards, winery stops to taste Müller Thurgau and sparkling wine bases, visits to porphyry quarries and, in September, taking part in the Grape Harvest Festival, which brings together the whole community scattered across the hamlets around the fruit that symbolises the territory.
Not to be missed
- A walk among the terraced Müller Thurgau and Chardonnay vineyards above the Avisio
- A winery tasting of the sparkling wine bases for Trentodoc
- Palù di Giovo, the birthplace of Francesco Moser
- The Baroque church of Santa Maria Assunta in Verla and the ancient church of San Giorgio
- Porphyry quarries and artisan stone-working workshops
To see
What to see in Giovo
Routes · Trovido Route
