Cool variety of dinner wines

 Excellent notes from Tanzer back in the day...

2001 Eilo Altare Barolo Vigneto Arborino....
"...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 rb 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) -- Stephen Tanzer, November 2004..."