January 1976, Burgundy: A young winegrower from La Morra returns from his first trip to France – and grabs a chainsaw. Elio Altare cuts down the fruit trees on the family estate, saws up the large old wooden barrels into firewood and begins his revolution: shorter macerations, French barriques, more elegant tannins. What the Piedmontese traditionalists branded as heresy became the birth of modern Barolo. Almost fifty years later, Elio and his daughter Silvia are continuing this story – with wines that combine power and finesse, structure and drinking pleasure in a balance that is unrivalled. The new vintages show the full spectrum of the estate: the Dolcetto d'Alba 2024 and Barbera d'Alba 2024 embody the everyday Piedmontese excellence that has always characterised Elio Altare – authentic, lively, uncomplicated. The Langhe Nebbiolo 2024 offers the perfect introduction to the Altare' world of Nebbiolo: pure fruit, velvety texture, without the monumental austerity of young Baroli.
And then the great Barolo 2021 – a vintage that has delighted critics worldwide: Arborina from La Morra, elegant and feminine with floral notes and silky tannins. Brunate, also from La Morra, more powerful and structured. Then there is the classic Barolo, an assemblage of several vineyards that perfectly represents the house. Fresh red fruit meets floral notes, liquorice and spices; the warm elegance for which the house is famous unfolds on the palate.
The absolute icons: Cannubi 2021, from the most famous vineyard in the Barolo region – a name that has stood for excellence for centuries. Here, the gentle power of the marl-sandstone soils is combined with Elio's modern vinification to create a wine of aristocratic grace. And UnoPerUno 2021, whose name says it all: the grapes are selected berry by berry, with only absolutely perfect fruit going into this wine. Only around 1,100 numbered bottles plus a few magnums are produced from four barriques – a wine for connoisseurs and collectors that epitomises the essence of Elio's perfectionism. The crowning glory is the Cerretta Vigna Bricco Riserva 2019 from Serralunga d'Alba: brooding, concentrated, with notes of black cherry, graphite, lavender and mocha – a monument to patience that has undergone four to five years of maceration in red fermenters and 24 months in French barriques.
Elio Altare proves once again: revolutionary ideas from the past are the classics of today. Discover the new vintages of a house that has changed Barolo forever. SUPERIORE.DE