Croatina - Colli Tortonesi, Piemonte, Italy

One of my favorite posts from the early days of this site is this one about the Bonarda grape from Argentina.  I remember being fascinated by the confusion surrounding the grape and having a blast trying to sort through and write about it.  This was before I had discovered the wealth of literature about DNA analysis and grape varieties, but the roots of that interest and a lot of the subsequent research I've done for the posts on this blog can be traced back to that piece.

I bring that post up because today's grape, Croatina, is also known as Bonarda in some regions of Italy.  We've taken a look at Croatina before here on this site, as it is an important component of a wine called Sangue di Giuda from Lombardia, Italy.  It is found primarily in northwestern Italy, in Piemonte and Lombardia, and is one of three different grapes in Italy that goes by the name of Bonarda.  In Piemonte, what is called Bonarda is typically either Uva Rara or Bonarda Piemontese.  When you're in the Oltrepò Pavese region of Lombardia in Italy, Bonarda refers to Croatina.  Today's wine is actually from Piemonte, and so the wine is labeled as Croatina rather than Bonarda, since Bonarda refers either to Uva Rara or Bonarda Piemontese here.  Argentine Bonarda is, of course, none other than the Charbono of California, which is known as Corbeau in France (see citation 1 below for further reading).  Interestingly enough, none of the grapes that are known as Bonarda are related to one another.

The name of the grape might make you think that it has something to do with the nation of Croatia, and you might be right, though just what that link might be is unclear.  Some believe that the grape came into Italy via Croatia and picked up its name in the same way that Greco or Grechetto picked up their names from Greece.  For awhile, Croatina was thought to be the same grape as Croatia's Hrvatica, since Hrvatica means "Croatian girl" in the Croatian language while Croatina means something like "Croatian girl" in Italian, but DNA studies have shown that these two grapes are not related to one another.  As far as I know, Croatina has not been shown to be identical to any grape currently grown in Croatia and I haven't found any studies that link its pedigree to any grape in Croatia either.

It is somewhat unusual to find a varietal Croatina labeled as such, but I was able to find a bottle in a local shop for about $25.  The wine was the 2006 Vignetti Massi "Pertichetta" Croatina from the Colli Tortonesi region of Piemonte.  In the glass the wine was a deep purple ruby color.  The nose was fairly intense with wild berry fruit aromas like blackberry, black cherry and blackcurrant along with some leather, smoke, black tea leaves and underbrush.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly high acidity and big, grippy tannins.  There were flavors of wild blackberry, black cherry, smoke, charcoal, old leather and blackcurrant.  This wine was big, brambly and wild with dark, dense, powerful flavors.  Croatina is typically a blending grape but if this bottle is any indication, it is a grape that deserves more attention as a varietal wine.  The flavors were rich and deep, but the wine was still very well balanced and had enough structure to endure even more bottle age than the six years this bottle already had on it.  This is a phenomenal wine for the money and is something I would not hesitate to buy again if I ran across it.

CITATIONS

1) Martinez, L., Cavagnara, P., Boursiquot, J.M., Aguero, C.  (2008) Molecular characterization of Bonarda-type grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivars from Argentina, Italy and France.  American Journal of Enology and Viticulture. 59(3). 287-291

Charbono - Napa, California

One of my favorite posts to write was about the Argentine grape Bonarda, mostly because it was a fascinating subject to research, but also because of that post, I ended up with some excellent information from an Argentine winery about Bonarda's true identity.  I've been to several tastings that have featured Argentine Bonarda since I wrote that and have heard it repeated many times that Italian Bonarda and Argentine Bonarda are one and the same grape (it's also still a widely spread bit of misinformation online as well).  As I discovered in researching the Bonarda and the  Sangue di Giuda posts, there are several different Italian Bonardas, and it seemed very unlikely that any of them were the same as the Argentine variety.  I had pretty much decided for myself that Charbono and Bonarda were the same grape, but I had the wrong Charbono pegged (there are two, one French and one Italian), as my friend from Argentina politely pointed out to me.  If only I had written about California Charbono first, those other posts may have been a bit better informed, but I guess I just happened to find the bottles in the wrong order.  Sometimes the path to discovery is a winding road.  I now have sampled a bottle of California Charbono and in researching it, seem to have finally gotten to the bottom of just what the heck Bonarda, and Charbono for that matter, really is.

It is now thought that Charbono came to California in the 1800's, though just how isn't really clear.  There are some who think it was brought over by a couple of Sonoma winegrowers directly from France in the 1870's.  Others believe that the wine was imported into the US as Barbera by Italian immigrants and the vines were planted and sold as Barbera wines (to some acclaim, as these Barbera bottlings won several medals).  The Barbera mix-up story seems to be the most widely disseminated version and seems to have a bit more evidence behind it.  It was only in the 1930's and 1940's that two UC Davis professors (one of whom was Harold Olmo creator of the Symphony grape) figured out that what was planted as Barbera in many California vineyards, particularly Inglenook, were actually Charbono.  Shortly after the discovery, Inglenook produced the first varietally labeled Charbono in 1941.

But what the heck is Charbono?  As mentioned in the Bonarda post, there is an Italian Charbono and a French Charbono which are unrelated to one another.  Genetic testing done in 1999 confirmed that California Charbono is the same grape as the French Charbono, better known in France as Corbeau aka Douce Noire aka Charbonneau.  It was thought for many years that Charbono and Dolcetto from Piemonte in Italy were the same grape or were at least related somehow, but genetic evidence seems to indicate that this isn't the case.  The common reason given for the confusion is that one of the French names for Charbono, Douce Noire, means "sweet black," and one of the synonyms for Dolcetto in Italy is Dolce Nero, which means the same thing.  That sounds pretty flimsy to me, but that's the story people are telling.  In any case, since independent testing has shown that California Charbono is actually Corbeau and Argentine Bonarda is actually Corbeau, simple logic tells us that California Charbono is the same grape as Argentine Bonarda and is not the same as any of the Italian Bonardas (Croatina, Uva Rara or Bonarda Piemontese), since none of those grapes are identical to Corbeau.

It's funny, though, because the California producers aren't exactly rushing to embrace the Argentine Bonarda connection.  In an article profiling California Charbono producers in Wine Business Monthly, the writer says "the really interesting fact is that Charbono as a varietal wine is produced only in California," which is technically correct since it is bottled as Bonarda in Argentina, but Argentina is not even mentioned in that article, though there are numerous references to the alleged French and Italian connections.  In fact, if you visit the web pages of the wineries listed in the article, not a single one of them mentions Argentina, but they are pretty much all excited to tell you about how few acres of Charbono there are in the world and how they're one of the few producers who bottle it.  Technically they're right, but it's a dishonest technicality based on the fact that the grape is only known as Charbono in California, so yes, there are technically fewer than 100 hectares of Charbono in the world, and yes, technically Charbono is only grown in California.  Because the grape is known as Bonarda in Argentina and Corbeau in France, if they call it Charbono then they're not actually lying when they say those things.  The reality is that Corbeau was not rescued from the brink of extinction by the California winegrowers and it's not some cult grape produced from minuscule holdings in California because it was and is alive and well down in Argentina and there's quite a bit of it being made.

There are a few possible explanations for this silence on the producers.  The first (and most charitable) is that the winery owners and winemakers are simply unaware of the connection between the two grapes.  Given their professions (and the availability of the data), I find that a little hard to swallow.  I've been to enough wineries and spoken to enough winemakers to know that those guys know almost everything there is to know about what they're growing and vinifying.  I think it's most likely that they want to cultivate an air of exclusivity and rarity about Charbono to pique consumer interest and charge a hefty price (you can bet your bottom dollar that if Bonarda were a classic grape in Argentina and was regularly fetching hundreds of dollars a bottle or was flying off the shelf like Malbec is then we'd be hearing all about it from these producers).  Prices for California Charbono seem to be in the $30 - $50 range with the lowest price that I've seen at around $19 (I web-shopped for these as we don't get much Charbono in Massachusetts), while Argentine Bonarda I've seen from as low as $8 a bottle to as high as $25 (I'm sure there are more expensive ones, but I'm just talking about what I've personally seen in shops). The very nearly extinct Charbono is only grown on about 80 acres of land and only in California while Bonarda is the second most grown grape in Argentina.  Which one would you pay more for? 

OK, so enough preaching.  I was able to pick up a bottle of the 2004 Robert Foley Charbono for $40 from my friends over at Curtis Liquors.   In the glass, the wine was an inky, opaque purple nearly all the way out to the rim.  The depth and intensity of color was shocking for a wine that was seven years old.  The nose was very ripe and loaded with cassis, blueberries and ripe purple fruits.  On the palate the wine was fairly full bodied with nice acidity and dusty, grippy tannins.  There were blackcurrant and creme de cassis flavors along with dried blueberries, blueberry jam, smoke, ripe black cherries and blackberries.  It was very dense and layered with gooey fruit flavors but with nice smoky, earthy espresso undertones and an acidity and tannin structure that was able to hold it all together.  This is a massive wine with incredible concentration and fruit flavors that just keep coming.  If I wasn't already convinced by all of the written evidence about Charbono and Argentine Bonarda, the tasting definitely would have converted me.  Both are inky, dense wines with enormous fruit flavors balance by nice acidity and tannins.  If you like the fruit layered on pretty thick, Charbono and Bonarda are definitely wines you should check out.  If you like your wines with a little restraint and finesse, stay away because subtlety and nuance are not what these wines are about.  These are steak wines that I think could stand up to a lot of Bar-b-Que dishes as well.  It has to be something with a lot of flavor because this is going to run over delicate or lightly seasoned foods.

Bonarda - Mendoza, Argentina

Ok, everybody buckle up for this one. The topic today is Argentinian Bonarda, and it's a tough grape to really pin down. For starters, there are several different Bonardas: there's Bonarda Piemontese, grown in Italy's Piedmont region and which has the synonyms Bonarda dell'Astigiano, Bonarda di Chieri, Bonarda di Gattinara or Bonarda del Monferrato; there's Bonarda dell'Oltrepò Pavese, grown in the Lombardy region of Italy and also known as Croatina; and finally there's Bonarda Novarese, grown around Piedmont and Lombady and also known as as Uva Rara. According to Argentinawineguide.com, the Bonarda grown in Argentina is either Bonarda Piemontese or Bonarda Novarese. Jancis Robinson (In the Oxford Companion to Wine), Oz Clarke (in his Grapes and Wines) and Wikipedia disagree and believe that Argentinian Bonarda is actually Charbono. But which Charbono? There is a Charbono grown in California, that it turns out is actually a French grape also known as Corbeau in Savoie. Some sources (Oz Clarke is on the fence, but Jonathan Alsop in his Wine Lover's Devotional) also believe this Charbono is the same as Dolcetto, grown in the Piedmont, but genetic testing says that this isn't the case. There is also an Italian Charbono grown in Barbera and Dolcetto vineyards in Piedmont which is not related to Corbeau or Dolcetto at all, which Jancis Robinson believes is the true Bonarda.

So which is it? The answer is, we still don't know. The strongest case seems to be for the Italian Charbono (UPDATE: As noted in the comments below, the French Charbono, or Corbeau, actually seems to be the closest match and Argentina is allowing winemakers to label their Bonarda as Corbeau if they wish. Thanks to commenter Gavilan Vineyards for the information). There is a large number of descendants of Italian immigrants in the country, with an estimated 60% of the population having some degree of Italian descent. Many of the Italian immigrants came from the Piedmont and Lombardy regions, where the Italian Charbono hails from. In any case, more research will need to be done to figure out what Bonarda actually is.

When most people think about Argentine wine, Malbec is what immediately springs to mind. Malbec is by far the most planted red grape in Argentina with over 20,000 hectares devoted to it in 2003. Before Malbec became the big star, Bonarda was the most planted red grape in Argentina and it is currently the 2nd most planted red grape there with about 16,000 hectares planted (Cabernet Sauvignon is a very close third and likely to overtake Bonarda soon with 15,440 acres planted). It is not as omnipresent in the US marketplace as Malbec, but it is easily obtainable from larger wine shops.

The bottle I picked up was the 2006 Trapiche Broquel Bonarda from Mendoza, Argentina. I paid about $18 for it. The wine was inky purple/black in the glass with incredibly deep saturation. It was completely opaque with even a small tasting pour in the glass. The nose is rich and complex with aromas of bittersweet chocolate, blueberry jam, intense black cherry aromas, boysenberries, blackcurrants/creme de cassis, and espresso. The perfume on this was rich, heavy and dense and I could have probably smelled it for about half an hour without getting tired of it. On the palate, the wine is full bodied and intensely rich with flavors of chocolate, charcoal, cola, blackcurrant and blackberries. This is a wine that Robert Parker would probably use the phrase "gobs of fruit" for. The fruit flavors are rich and sappy, so extracted that it's almost sweet, but there are those nice earthy elements there also that keep this from tasting like syrup. There is a nice acid base and fine, powdery tannins. This is a blockbuster of a wine for the price and would be ideal with grilled meats, steaks, roasts or just sitting in front of a fire and relaxing. If you're a fan of rich, extracted new-world red wines, this is just the things you are looking for. Whatever grape is actually in this bottle is pretty tasty.

(See also my post on Sangue di Giuda for more information on Bonarda in Italy)