Italy · Langhe

Azienda Agricola Altare di Altare Nicholas

Fifth-generation Dogliani family that spent a century selling grapes and began estate bottling in 2015, making one organic Dolcetto with 21 days of skin contact and ten months in concrete.

The producer

Nicholas Altare farms 2.5 hectares of old-vine Dolcetto in San Luigi, Dogliani, in the Langhe hills of southern Piemonte. His family grew Dolcetto here for five generations and sold the fruit to other producers. When Nicholas was sixteen, he negotiated the handover: he would take over the vineyard if his father agreed to convert to organic farming. His father agreed. In 2015, with no winery of his own, Nicholas made his first wine inside Fernando Principiano's cellar, one of the best-known natural winemakers in the region. Ten vintages later, the estate produces one wine from one appellation.

The Dogliani DOCG is fermented with 21 days of skin contact in concrete tanks and aged in concrete for nine to ten months. No oak at any stage. The extended maceration gives the wine more colour, tannin, and mid-palate grip than a lighter Dolcetto d'Alba style. It is a dry red with dark cherry, white pepper, and basil on the nose, firm tannins through the mid-palate, and a long finish. Organic and vegan throughout.

Known for

Dogliani DOCG Dolcetto, extended skin contact, concrete fermentation and ageing, organic and vegan farming

Notable facts

The story

The Condition at Sixteen

Nicholas was sixteen when he walked into a conversation with his father about the family vineyard. The Altare family had grown Dolcetto in Dogliani for five generations and sold every kilogram of fruit. Nicholas wanted to take over the farming. His father's answer came with a condition: yes, but only if the estate converted to organic viticulture. Nicholas agreed immediately. He took over the vineyard, began the conversion, and spent the following years building toward a first wine with no cellar of his own. In 2015, he made his first vintage inside Fernando Principiano's cellar in Piemonte. His father had said yes to the farming. The bottle took nearly a decade longer to arrive.

From the atlas

Azienda Agricola Altare di Altare Nicholas

At A Glance

The Producer

For five generations, the Altare family grew Dolcetto in Dogliani and sold the grapes. When Nicholas was sixteen, he made his father a proposal: hand over the vineyard management, and convert the estate to organic farming. His father agreed on both counts. The family had never made their own wine.

Nicholas had no winery. In 2015, he began his first vinification inside the cellar of Fernando Principiano, one of Piemonte's most respected natural winemakers, where he worked for the following decade. Ten vintages in, the estate produces one wine from one appellation: Dogliani DOCG, from 2.5 hectares of old-vine Dolcetto in the San Luigi locality.

Place

Dogliani sits in the Langhe hills of southern Piemonte, below Barolo and Alba. The appellation is devoted entirely to Dolcetto, and was elevated from DOC to DOCG in 2011. That elevation matters in the glass: Dogliani Dolcetto runs darker, weightier, and more tannic than the Dolcetto d'Alba produced further north, where the grape plays a lighter, earlier-drinking role.

San Luigi, the locality where Altare's vines grow, lies in the commune of Dogliani. The old vines produce lower yields and more concentrated fruit than younger plantings would.

Soil And Site

The vines are old and the farming is organic. What the site does produce, consistently, is Dolcetto with enough body and tannin to carry 21 days of skin contact without losing its fruit.

Story

Five generations of grape growers selling to other producers is not a failure: it was the regional model. Dogliani farmers fed the larger négociant and cooperative system, and many still do. Nicholas changed the direction at a moment of succession. His father's agreement to convert to organic farming was the condition; his own move into Principiano's cellar in 2015 was the execution.

Principiano runs one of the estates most associated with Piemonte's turn toward low-intervention winemaking. Working there for a decade gave Nicholas the technical foundation and the philosophical orientation: organic in the vineyard, concrete and skin contact in the cellar. The first vintage was a small release. By the 2019 vintage, the estate was producing around 8,500 bottles. The arc from grape supplier to independent winemaker spans a single generation and roughly ten years of deliberate apprenticeship.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 2.5-hectare estate is farmed organically and to vegan standards. Grapes are hand-harvested. In the cellar, fermentation runs 21 days with skin contact in concrete tanks. That extended maceration draws more colour, tannin, and mid-palate weight from the Dolcetto than a brief four or five-day extraction would. Concrete holds temperature more evenly than stainless steel and does not add oxygen or wood character, so the fruit stays direct and the tannins integrate cleanly.

After fermentation, the wine ages in concrete for nine to ten months before bottling. The 2021 vintage used a split of stainless steel and concrete for fermentation; other vintages use full concrete. No oak is involved at any stage.

Wines

One wine. The Dogliani DOCG is the entire range: organic Dolcetto, hand-harvested from old vines in San Luigi, fermented with skin contact, aged in concrete. There is no entry-level bottling, no reserve, no second label. The single wine carries all the choices made in vineyard and cellar.

Across vintages, the wine shows a dark fruit core: cherry, raspberry, and strawberry alongside herbal and spice notes, white pepper particularly. The 2021 showed a beautiful open nose and a long presence on the palate. The 2024 added basil and blood orange to the dark cherry and pepper register. Tannins are present and grip the mid-palate, softening through the concrete ageing period without disappearing. The wine is not built for immediate, easy drinking in the way a short-maceration Dolcetto d'Alba often is.

In The Glass

The nose opens with dark cherry, raspberry, and a lift of white pepper, and behind that a herbal note, basil specifically, that is unusual in the grape. In the mouth, the fruit is dense and the tannins are firmly woven through the mid-palate, the consequence of three weeks of skin contact on a variety that already carries natural tannin. Acidity keeps the wine from sitting heavily. The finish is long, with the pepper and cherry holding through. Blood orange shows on the 2024, adding a citrus-edged freshness that pulls against the darker fruit. The overall character is firm and dry, with nothing softened by oak or shortened by an early bottling decision.

A Bottle To Understand It

The Dogliani DOCG is the only bottle Altare makes, so the choice is made. Pick a current vintage. What arrives is a dry red from Dolcetto with three weeks of skin contact and ten months in concrete: dark cherry and white pepper on the nose, firm tannins in the mouth, and a long finish. The concrete ageing builds cohesion without adding flavour, so what you taste is the grape, the old vines, and the extended maceration.

Anecdote

Nicholas was sixteen when he walked into a conversation with his father about the family vineyard. The family had grown Dolcetto in Dogliani for five generations and sold every kilogram of fruit. Nicholas wanted to take over the farming. His father's answer was conditional: yes, but only if the estate converted to organic viticulture. Nicholas agreed immediately. He took over the vineyard, converted the farming, and spent the next several years with no winery and no label. In 2015 he made his first wine inside Fernando Principiano's cellar. His father had said yes to the farming change. The bottle took a decade longer.

Final Word

A fifth-generation family that spent a century selling grapes now bottles under its own name from 2.5 hectares of old-vine Dolcetto in Dogliani. The wine is dark, tannic, and made with minimal intervention: concrete throughout, extended skin contact, no oak. Nicholas Altare learned his craft in someone else's cellar and brought it home.

Sources

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