Why it matters
The producer
Elio Altare farms Nebbiolo in La Morra, the westernmost commune of the Barolo DOCG, from a cellar at Frazione Annunziata 51 in the hills above the village. His grandfather Giuseppe moved the family from Dogliani to La Morra in 1948, buying a five-hectare farm. Elio, born in 1950, inherited that farm and spent the next decade deciding what to do with it.
What he did was choose Burgundy as his reference point. After travelling to France in the 1970s and watching what smaller barrels did to Pinot Noir, he came back to Piemonte convinced that Nebbiolo could be treated the same way: shorter time on the skins, French oak barriques instead of the region's large Slavonian botti, earlier bottling to keep perfume. Those were not neutral technical choices in Barolo at the time. His father Giovanni rejected the changes, and Elio was barred from the winery until Giovanni's death in 1985.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Barolo DOCG sits in the Langhe hills of Piemonte, southeast of Alba. The zone spans five communes: La Morra, Barolo, Castiglione Falletto, Serralunga d'Alba, and Cherasco. Soil type and commune position pull Nebbiolo in different directions. Serralunga and Castiglione Falletto sit on compact Helvetian limestone and give wines with hard, slow-developing tannin. La Morra sits on younger Tortonian calcareous clay soils, softer and more fertile, and typically gives Nebbiolo with earlier aromatic lift and less grippy tannin.
Altare's parcels are in Annunziata, a fraction of La Morra known for that calcareous clay character. Shorter macerations and French oak barriques amplify the softness already in the soil rather than fighting against it. Barolo opens earlier and leads with rose and red fruit rather than tar and dried leather.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The Arborina vineyard is farmed as two separate parcels. Grapes are fermented in steel with just three to four days of skin contact, a fraction of the extended macerations that were standard in traditional Barolo, where four to six weeks was not unusual. Short maceration captures the aromatic lift in Nebbiolo's skin while stopping short of the hard phenolic tannin that extended contact pulls out.
After fermentation, the wine moves to French oak barriques for 24 months, with 30% new oak in the rotation. New barrique adds vanilla and gentle spice; the 70% used wood moderates that influence and leaves more room for rose and raspberry. The proportion is calibrated: enough new wood to add roundness, not enough to overwrite rose and raspberry with toast.
Wines to know
The range in view
The estate's core is Barolo, with Nebbiolo from La Morra parcels across the range. Within that range, Barolo Arborina is the single vineyard wine from two La Morra parcels planted in 1948 and 1989, with annual production of approximately 5,200 bottles.
Barolo Arborina is made from 100% Nebbiolo. It is fermented in steel with three to four days of skin contact and aged for 24 months in French oak barriques, 30% new.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Barolo Arborina is the right first bottle. It comes from the two La Morra parcels that Altare has farmed longest, vinified with short maceration and 24 months in French oak, and it shows exactly what the estate's choices produce: fresh rose on the nose, smooth but genuine tannin in the mouth, firm acidity that holds the wine together, and a finish that stays floral rather than drying into bitterness. Around 5,200 bottles are made each year, so it is available without being common. Open it at eight to ten years for the most complete picture, or at five if you want to taste the floral lift at its brightest.