Charbono
2020

100% Charbono

windrow vineyard

walla walla valley

The late Doug Roskelly, owner of Tero Estates in Walla Walla, came across the Charbono grape while tasting wines with his wife in the Napa Valley, home to a sizeable, but decreasing number of old vines of the variety.  She enjoyed the wine so much that they decided plant Charbono at their Windrow Vineyard in 2009, believed to be the first plantings of the variety in the Pacific Northwest.  Sadly, Doug unexpectedly passed away in 2020.  During that harvest season, we learned that the Charbono vines might not be harvested at all that year. After visiting the vineyard, we arranged to harvest the already ripe fruit as quickly as possible.  The result is a delicious wine that proves that Doug knew what he was doing when he brought the variety to the Walla Walla Valley.

Charbono originated in Savoie, France where it is known as Douce Noir.  Plantings are rare in Europe these days.  Today it can mostly be found California, where it was brought by early Italian settlers, or in Argentina, where it is known as Bonarda and is the second most planted red grape variety.  It is a very late ripener producing deeply colored, full-bodied wines that maintain freshness due to ample acidity and typically moderate alcohol levels, even in very warm climates. Inky purple and plush with exotic aromas of blackcurrant, fig, hoisin and allspice.  Aged in neutral Hungarian oak barrels for 18 months.

100% Charbono. 12.8% alc.