Like Courchevel, but in Italy: the village or the skiing?

If the answer to the question above was the village, this is your Italian Courchevel. It is the only one of the three picks that keeps Courchevel's upmarket streak, and our read on it is smart and sociable, with style, families and grooming top of its list. The grooming is the clearest overlap: both resorts are known for a perfect surface first thing. Madonna has been fashionable since the Habsburg era, and its evenings centre on the aperitivo in a pedestrian street of smart shops rather than a nightclub. Lunch is a long one at a rifugio, and there are refined dining rooms in the village when you want an occasion.

The skiing is all one piece. Skiarea Campiglio is 155 kilometres across three sectors, every one of them linked by lift, and we measure 115 kilometres around the village itself. The easy end feels much like home: 36 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, against Courchevel's 35. There are 17 kilometres of black, the second most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover, and 54 kilometres of blue and easier, also second.

What you give up is the scale and the bite. We measure under two fifths of Courchevel's piste, and only 18 percent of it is steeper than one in four, against 26. Grade for grade it is gentler through the reds: blues average 12.9 percent against Courchevel's 17.5, and reds 19.7 against 24.0. The blacks hold their own, 30.2 against 31.3. Height is the other trade. The village sits 197 metres below the centre of Courchevel 1850, 61 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against 71, and the skiing tops out at 2,496 metres, 201 below Courchevel's top.

Sestriere is what you get if you keep Courchevel's mountain and let the gloss go. Our matching puts it closer to Courchevel than any other Italian resort, and second closest anywhere. Like Courchevel, it was built for skiing. Its village is at 2,035 metres, the fourth highest of the 55 resorts we cover and 288 above Courchevel 1850's centre, and the skiing reaches 2,788 metres by our measure, 91 above Courchevel's top. It is snow sure on our measure, more so than Courchevel: 91 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres.

It is the biggest Italian resort we cover by our measure, with 160 kilometres of piste around the village, and it sits on the Via Lattea, the Milky Way. The lifts a standard Italian pass opens add up to roughly 305 kilometres, our own subtraction, since nobody publishes one. The better known 400 counts Montgenèvre over the French border too, and for that you need the International pass, which costs more.

The shape is closer to Courchevel's than you might expect. The share of gentle piste, under 15 percent, is 35 percent at both resorts, and the steep share is 30 percent here against 26. It has 18 kilometres of black and 10.8 of marked itinerary, the most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover on both, and more than twice Courchevel's 4.5 of itinerary.

The trade is in the middle of the mountain and in the village. There are only 50 kilometres of blue and easier, under a third of Courchevel's 178.5 of green and blue, and more than half the piste is red. The blues that exist are the second gentlest of the 55 we cover, averaging 12.0 percent, so a nervous skier is fine on them and then has a big step up. And our read on the village is high and practical, with value on its list where Courchevel has luxury.

The hardest part of Courchevel to replace is the Three Valleys, a day spent skiing from one valley to the next. Val Gardena's answer is the Sellaronda. From a base on it about 500 kilometres is reachable by lift without a bus, across the four areas that are genuinely joined. Val Gardena's own sector is 175 kilometres, and we measure 145 around the village. The 1,200 kilometres you will see quoted is the Dolomiti Superski pass across twelve areas, most of them not linked, so treat it as a pass and not a ski area.

The skiing is the gentlest of the three. Forty percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, the joint most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover, and only 13 percent is steeper than one in four, the second lowest share of the 55 resorts we cover. A Val Gardena red averages 17.3 percent, a shade under the 17.5 of Courchevel's blues. It is snow sure on our measure: 66 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to a lift top at 2,731 metres, above the highest piste we measure, at 2,480.

The trade is the black runs and the gloss. There are 16 kilometres of black, about half Courchevel's, and they average 26.1 percent, the gentlest blacks of the 10 Italian resorts we cover. Our read on the valley is scenic and traditional, known for its woodcarving and the Dolomites around it rather than for luxury.