Elio Altare Langhe Rosso Arborina, Piedmont, Italy

伊林奧特阿波利納園紅葡萄酒

點(diǎn)擊次數(shù)：6395

The 1990 Vigna Arborina is exactly the same juice as the Barolo Arborina, but here the wine went straight into new barrels for the malolactic fermentation and spent 12 months in oak rather than 24. This is a gorgeous, impeccable wine laced with refined aromatics woven into a soft, textured core of fruit. The oak regime has given the Arborina a softer feel than the Barolo in 1990, but with perhaps a touch less of that wine’s definition and nuance. Nevertheless, the 1990 Vigna Arborina is a gorgeous wine with a bright future ahead of it. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2020.Elio Altare was (and continues to be) one of the leading figures of the modernist movement in Barolo. Not only did Altare make some of the most groundbreaking wines in Piedmont, he also inspired a whole generation of younger producers to estate-bottle their wines rather than selling their fruit and/or wine to the region’s large bottlers. By the late 1980s Altare’s approach was already well-defined. Fermentations were a then-shocking three and half to five days long, with manual pumpovers and punchdowns. The Barolos were racked into steel for the malolactic fermentations and then aged in French oak barrels, of which roughly 30% were new. One of the distinguishing aspects of Altare’s approach compared to that of his contemporaries is his preference for carrying out the malolactic fermentations in steel for his Barolos (as is common in Bordeaux) rather than in oak (as is the norm in Burgundy), which Altare believes yields wines that retain freshness and age more gracefully. After having tasted Altare’s 1989 and 1990 Barolos, along with those of Roberto Voerzio and Angelo Gaja (two producers who share the same approach to malolactic fermentation) it is awfully hard to argue with that view. It was indeed fascinating to taste two of Altare’s 1990 from the same vineyard, the Vigna Arborina, which underwent malolactic fermentation in 100% new oak, followed by another 12 months in the same French oak barrels, and the Barolo Arborina, which underwent malo in stainless steel and was subsequently aged in French oak. Altare was harshly criticized for his outspoken advocacy of green harvesting, short (often radically short) fermentations and use of French oak. The critics claimed the wines would not age. They could not have been more wrong.