8 minute read
GRAPE PROFILE: BONARDA IN ARGENTINA
By W. Blake Gray
Argentina is a wine-drinking country.
In 2020, it ranked seventh in the world in wine consumption per capita at 27.6 liters: more than Germany or Spain, and twice as much as Canada. Argentina is also a country where the economy is like a series of earthquakes and tidal waves. Sometimes it’s wealthy; sometimes there’s hyperinfl ation. Through it all, people need wine, whether or not they have a lot of money to spend on it.
That’s where Bonarda comes in. Bonarda was the most-planted variety in Argentina until about 20 years ago, when Malbec passed it. Growers like it because it produces large crops. Drinkers like it because it makes fresh, fruit-driven, soft-tannin red wine: perfect for quaffi ng when you quaff a lot. Malbec, which is harder to grow and more tannic, is for serious occasions; Bonarda is for every day. That’s the stereotype.
But often Bonarda and Malbec were blended together, because they’re a perfect couple. If Malbec is Argentina’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Bonarda is its Merlot. I realize that doesn’t sound like a selling point, but many of the world’s most-loved red blends are based on Merlot. Bonarda also has that approachable, easy-todrink fruitiness.
“I also like that there’s a spiciness, but it’s a little bit more fruity than Malbec,” said Laura Catena, managing director of Catena Zapata winery. “And it’s a bit lighter: it’s not as rich as Malbec. It has a kind of sweet-and-sour taste that makes it refreshing. My father always says that when his grandfather, when they used to meet together, they would have a bottle of Malbec for my grandfather and a bottle of Bonarda for my great-grandfather.”
Many wine drinkers are not familiar with Bonarda mainly because so little of it leaves Argentina. Importers want the serious Malbec, not it’s gentler sidekick. Catena said it’s easy for her to impress wine buyers in Europe with Bonarda - it’s just so likable - but harder to get that second order because nobody outside Argentina has heard of it.
Bonarda also has an interesting history. Argentina has strong ties to Italy and growers years ago thought it was the same grape as Italian Bonarda. There are at least six grapes called Bonarda in Italy; the best-known is grown in Piedmont and is sometimes used in a blend to soften the tannins of Nebbiolo. Sounds like the same thing, right?
But Argentine Bonarda isn’t actually from Italy at all. Genetic testing showed that it is actually from the Savoie region of France, where it goes by the name Douce Noire. It’s almost extinct in France, with just fi ve acres of it left in 2007. There’s more of it in Napa Valley, where it goes by the name Charbono; California has 80 acres. Argentina has more than 40,000 acres of it, so it’s easily the grape’s home base now.
Not being taken seriously as a grape is a vicious cycle: we see this with Carmenere in Chile. While Bonarda has the ability to create large crops, it’s still better to limit them for wine quality. Bonarda usually doesn’t get the attention in the winery that Malbec does, for better and worse: this is not a grape that benefi ts from a heavy oak treatment. But Bonarda is more forgiving than Carmenere; you can grow it in a less-favorable spot in the vineyard and crop the heck out of it and still get a quaff able wine. You just may not get something special.
The worst part of the cycle is in planting. In the 1960s and ‘70s, when Argentina was in a high-inflation cycle, growers ripped out Malbec to plant more Bonarda. But now it’s the opposite.
“A lot of the vineyards of Bonarda are really old vineyards,” Catena told Quench. “But the reason they’re old is that people are not replanting Bonarda. Whenever they replant, they replant with Malbec. (At our winery), we’re preserving different vines of Malbec. We’re doing the same with Bonarda. We’re really scared the genetic diversity of Bonarda is going to disappear.”
That would be a shame, because a big selling point for Bonarda is that it’s much more
Laura Catena, managing director of Catena Zapata
heat-tolerant than Malbec, or indeed than any Bordeaux variety. In California, that means it was planted in Calistoga, in the warmest part of Napa Valley. In Argentina, that means that while Malbec is planted in increasingly higher-elevation parts of Uco Valley to get cooler temperatures, Bonarda flourishes in lower altitudes under the hot sun. As global warming inexorably advances, that could be increasingly important.
“Bonarda thrives in real dry weather, and high temperature, around 40 Celsius,” said Alejandro Vigil, president of Wines of Argentina and winemaking director at Catena Zapata. “It grows well in pergola. It needs much sunlight on the leaves.”
Vigil makes single-vineyard Bonardas for his own winemaking project, El Enemigo, some from 100-year-old own-rooted vines.
“I remember my first time with a grower who worked in the vineyard; the vines were old and he was about 80 years old,” Vigil said. “He was interested in Bonarda but the younger workers weren’t. For Argentina, the people say Bonarda is cheap wine. The last five years, there are more higher end wines. We have great potential for this, especially in the east part of Mendoza.”
I have been a believer in Bonarda for a while because I like a quaffable red, and it’s slyly more interesting the more you drink it. In 2016 I spent a month in Argentina, and in a tasting-menu restaurant I had a carbonic-maceration Bonarda from a brand called Revolucionara that I shudder to bring up because I couldn’t find it in any wine shops in Buenos Aires, much less Calgary. But it was lovely like a cru Beaujolais: light in body but with great texture and complexity. That was my favorite wine from the whole month.
It’s not the only Bonarda to remind me of Beaujolais. I experienced something like it again with Catena’s natural-wine version of Bonarda, La Marchigiana, which is fermented and aged in clay amphora. It’s juicy, fresh and lively, with a bottom note of concrete minerality. It’s easy to drink yet gets more interesting as you go along, and the good news is this one you can buy in Canada and the USA. (Catena describes its label, the same as the one used by her great-grandfather in the early 1900s, as “a little bit art deco slash Mussolini.”)
“When I told my dad, ‘We’re going to make wine without sulfites in amphora,’ he said, ‘You’re not inventing anything. That’s how my grandfather made wine,” Catena said. “What I have found when I did my natural wine tastings is that there are some really good wines and some really bad wines. When we decided to make a natural wine, we decided to try 10 varieties that we like. Bonarda really shined. I don’t know if that was a result of the alcohol and the pH and enough tannin so that you don’t have any weird problems.”
Conventional Bonarda is just as agreeable (and safer). I’ll steal this line from one of my tasting notes for this story: A wine like this is easy for anyone who likes red wine to like.
Photo credit: supplied by Catena Zapata
W. Blake Gray is US editor for Wine-Searcher, the world’s most-visited wine website. He has written about wine for many publications including the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times. In 2013 he won the Roederer Award for best online wine writer in the world. During the pandemic, Blake rediscovered his childhood love of cheeseburgers, but his death-row meal is steamed crabs. His cocktail of choice is a Manhattan. Blake lives in San Francisco. Made with organic grapes. A very dark purple color, this wine is juicy, fresh and a little savory. It’s a simple wine that isn’t ambitious, but is quaffable.
Dandelion Mendoza Bonarda 2020 13% (organic and Fair Trade certified)
This wine reminds me of what people want to make when they make wine at home: juicy and fruity, with black berry fruit and a bit of tannin on the finish. Not a wine for contemplation; I can imagine somebody’s grandfather slowly downing a bottle of this on the porch in the afternoon while chatting with the neighbors.
Winemaker Alejandro Vigil wants people to notice the impact of terroir on Bonarda, and it works with his single-vineyard series. This wine has a sweet-and-sour aroma characteristic of some Bonardas; it smells like dark berries but also with a sour cherry note. On the palate it’s juicy, low tannin, easy-drinking dark berry fruit with a slight sweet-and-sour note. The acidity is not pronounced but plays up on the finish.
What a difference a vineyard makes. This wine delivers juicy dark fruit and a light-medium body with just a bit of tannin on the finish. There’s also a noticeable line of minerality. The finish is fairly short, but invites another sip.
Nicolas Catena “La Marchigiana” “Vino Natural Ancestral” Bonarda 2020 13%
Made in an amphora with no added sulfites, this is what you hope for from a natural wine (and don’t always get). There’s an exuberance to this: juicy red plum on the nose with a distinctive note of concrete minerality. It’s well balanced and more complex than it first appears. I don’t always sample the same open bottle the next day, but this one I did and it stayed fresh, pure and delightful.
Zuccardi “Emma” Valle de Uco Mendoza Bonarda 2018 13.5%
A lively wine with plenty of freshness and dark plum fruit. While you could find more complex wines, this is the kind of wine that pretty much anyone who likes red wines would find a reason to like.
