2001 Larigi

Although Elio Altare is best known for the superb Barolos he crafts from the Arborina and Brunate vineyards, his entire range is among the most consistently brilliant in Italy. This truly once in a lifetime retrospective tasting traced the development of Altare's Vigna Larigi, an old-vine Barbera made from a tiny one-hectare plot on the Arborina hillside. For the occasion Altare opened every vintage of Larigi from 1985 to 2006 - with the exception of the 1983 and 1984, which could not be located – a rare event by any measure, most importantly because Altare himself had never tasted so many vintages of the wine in one sitting. All of the bottles came from Altare's personal collection, meaning that provenance was unparalleled. Readers will note that I have refrained from providing drinking windows for that very reason, as it is nearly impossible to replicate the sheer joy and profoundness older, perfectly-stored bottles offer. Still, there is a more important lesson to learn here, and it is that if purchased upon release and stored properly, top vintages of Larigi are capable of providing 20+ years of fine drinking. Needless to say, this tasting provided a unique look at the career of one the world's great vignerons. Altare remains perhaps the most ardent proponent of the modern school of winemaking in Piedmont. He was among the first producers to shorten fermentation times radically, use French oak for his wines and demonstrate that Barbera could yield wines of far greater pedigree than the over-cropped, acidic versions that were the norm when he was starting out. Altare's role in inspiring an entire younger generation of growers to estate-bottle their wines and leave behind the production of grapes and bulk wine can't possibly be overestimated. One of the frequent criticisms hurled at Altare over the years was that his wines wouldn't age. That misguided view has been proven wrong time and again by the splendid maturation of Altare's Barolos from the 1980s, as it was again on this day with a simply superb set of Barberas. As Larigi ages, it takes on a surprising level of complexity in its aromas and flavors, and the 100% new French oak becomes virtually undetectable, especially in the very finest vintages.

Critics of new-wave Barolos that are fermented quickly in rotofermenters [usually, stainless steel cylindrical vats in which pigeage is done by means of a propeller that rotates inside the vat; in some cases, the entire tank itself slowly revolves] owe it to themselves to taste and follow Altare's superb wines, which provide significant early appeal and have proven to offer at least medium-term aging potential. Altare clearly would prefer to do as little extraction as possible to avoid getting wines whose tannins stand in the way of their early accessibility. As he describes it:"Why carry out longer fermentations, get tougher tannins, and then have to fine the wines to get them back into balance?Is it better to make a wine that will be better after 20 years than one that will be better for its first 20 years?"Altare noted that it's the wine media, through its consistent praise for his wines, that has enabled him to do short fermentations, and he maintains that his wines have aged just fine. He typically does just three days or so of maceration for his Arborina and five or six for Brunate, which he says requires more extraction. The wines are racked for the second time after they finish their malolactic fermentations in stainless steel in March, and then go into barriques, 20% of which are new, for 18 to 20 months of what he describes as "a Burgundian elevage. "During this period, the wines normally are not racked. Instead, Altare uses micro-oxidation if the wines become reduced; on the whole, he prefers "a natural reduction" so that he doesn't have to use SO2. His wines then spend their final several months back in cuve before being bottled. Altare describes the 2000s as elegant wines that are more ready to drink than the '99s. The 2001s, he adds, are sturdier wines that are midway between the fleshier 2000s and more serious, tannic 1999s. (Marc de Grazia; numerous importers, including Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; and Estate Wines Ltd. , San Rafael, CA)