Elio Altare

Coming Up

In La Morra, Italy, wine work is the land’s daily rhythm, and Elio Altare’s early formation reflects that reality. Burgundy enters the record through Le Serbet, where he worked early in his career; it sits as a shaping reference, not as ornament. Since 2003, he has been winemaker of Elio Altare, a role that places him inside a long working tradition while keeping the voice of the wines distinctly his own. Asked to describe the craft, he answers without polish: "I have a very big problem: I love this job." The line is plain, but it lands like trade talk — direct, unsentimental, and committed to the work itself.

Where They Are Now

The craft is still anchored in La Morra, Italy, where Altare works as a winemaker in a place defined by season, labor, and repetition. His own account makes the point in practical terms: "I am a farmer; when I was twenty, I was still plowing the land with an ox among the rows. I knew the hardships of the past. I learned to respect the land and the work in this way." The value here is not nostalgia but method. The ox, the rows, the physical memory of hardship — these are the terms through which the land is understood and worked. That experience gives the wines their discipline: attention to site, respect for labor, and a working sense of what the ground asks back.

Signature

The named wines associated with Elio Altare mark out the scope of his work in Barolo and the way he returns to the same ground through different sites. Barolo DOCG Arborina, Barolo DOCG Cannubi, Barolo DOCG Brunate, Barolo DOCG Unoperuno, and Barolo Riserva DOCG Cerretta Vigna Bricco each point to a practice built on specificity rather than generality. The throughline is precision: letting site remain legible, and letting time do its work without forcing the result. Altare says it plainly: "I want to work not for money, but emotion." In trade terms, that reads less like a slogan than a working position — a statement of intent about why the wine is made and what it is meant to carry.

In Their Words “I am a farmer; when I was twenty, I was still plowing the land with an ox among the rows. I knew the hardships of the past. I learned to respect the land and the work in this way.” “I have a very big problem: I love this job.”