Showing bright fruit freshness and energy, the Elio Altare 2020 Barolo is packed with cherry, wild currant, dried apricot and orange peel. The wine offers volume and texture, more so than your standard Barolo, with soft layers and pretty accessibility. It ages in used barrique for 24 months. There is a hint of butter biscuit too. The tannins are almost resolved, and you don't need to wait long to open one of the 13,000 bottles made.
93 points, Monica Larner, Wine Advocate (Apr 2024)
The 2020 Barolo is a classy, elegant wine, benefitting from the addition of the best lots of Cerretta, which was not bottled in 2020. Muscular, incisive tannins wrap around a core of dark red fruit, cedar, mint, tobacco and spice. Rich and explosive, yet also medium in body, the 2020 is terrific. Vineyard sites are Sarmassa, Pernanno, Bricco Ambrogio and Cerretta. The Altare straight Barolo remains one of the unheralded stars in Piedmont, even after all these years.
92 points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous (Jan 2024)
Bright and expressive, yet there's depth, too. Flavors of cherry, strawberry, iron, eucalyptus and tar are aligned with a fluid feel and solid structure. Balanced, with a light grip of tannins on the peppery finish. Best from 2027 through 2042. 833 cases made, 280 cases imported.
92 points, Bruce Sanderson, Wine Spectator (Nov 2024)