Elio Altare

### History Elio Altare's name is inseparable from one of the more consequential ruptures in Italian wine history. Working from the family estate in La Morra during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Altare returned from visits to Burgundy convinced that Piedmontese winemaking needed to change. The wines he had grown up making, long macerations and years in large Slavonian oak, struck him as oxidized and unnecessarily austere. He began experimenting with shorter extraction times and small French barriques, moves that put him in direct conflict with his father, who famously expelled him from the family home over the disagreement. Altare continued regardless.

He became a central figure in the loose coalition of producers later dubbed the Barolo Boys, a group that included Giorgio Rivetti, Domenico Clerico, and others who pushed Barolo and the broader Langhe toward a more fruit-forward, structurally approachable style. The debate between this camp and traditionalists who favored long macerations and large casks defined Piedmontese wine criticism for roughly two decades. Altare never positioned himself as a polemicist; he simply made wines that sold and aged well and let the bottles argue for him.

The estate has remained family-run, with his daughter Silvia taking an increasingly central role over the years. The scale has stayed deliberately small, focused on a tight portfolio of Langhe wines rather than expansion.

### Vineyards The estate is based in La Morra, on the western side of the Barolo zone, where soils tend toward Tortonian calcareous marls that give wines a rounder, more aromatic character than the more austere Helvetian soils of Serralunga or Castiglione Falletto. Altare holds parcels in some of La Morra's most regarded sites. Arborina is the anchor vineyard, a south to southwest-facing slope that provides the fruit for his flagship Barolo of the same name. The Larigi bottling draws on Barbera planted in another named parcel, and La Villa designates a Barbera and Nebbiolo blend from a specific site as well.

Exact hectarage is not widely published, but the holdings are understood to be modest, consistent with the estate's intentionally limited output. Farming practices lean toward sustainable viticulture; the specifics of any formal certification are not documented in widely available sources.

### Winemaking Altare's approach in the cellar was radical for its time and remains distinct within the Langhe. Nebbiolo for Barolo and Langhe Nebbiolo undergoes relatively short maceration, typically under two weeks, which reduces tannin extraction and preserves primary fruit. Fermentation takes place in temperature-controlled rotary fermenters or small open vessels depending on the wine, and aging is done in French barriques, a mix of new and used oak, rather than the large botti that traditionalists favor. The result is wines that are accessible earlier but have proven capable of aging well over decades.

Larigi is one of the estate's signature bottlings: a single-vineyard Barbera d'Alba aged in new French oak, which was a statement wine when first produced and remains one of the more serious expressions of the variety in the region. La Villa, which blends Barbera and Nebbiolo, represents a Langhe DOC approach that sidesteps appellation constraints to achieve a specific balance Altare finds more interesting than either variety alone at that site.

Filtering and fining practices are minimal by most accounts. The overall house style prioritizes clarity, aromatic precision, and approachable structure over extraction or power.