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

Sangue di Giuda - Oltrepò Pavese, Italy

Croatina Grapes

I don't want to alarm anyone, but we're going to brush up against our old friend Bonarda again in this post, so let's all put our serious faces on and buckle up once again.

The wine in question today is called Sangue di Giuda (or "Blood of Judas" in English) and it's made in the Oltrepò Pavese region of Lombardy in north-central Italy. Lombardy is bounded to the north by the Alps, to the west by Piedmont, to the east by the Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige and to the south by Emilia-Romagna. Oltrepò Pavese is in the southwest of Lombardy, touching the boundaries of both Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna. It is thought to be the first region in Italy where Pinot Noir was planted. Quality here is very variable: the region is a big time producer of bulk wines, turning out production figures comparable to production powerhouse Soave in the Veneto. Oltrepò Pavese has two offical subzones: Buttafuoco (which apparently means "sparks"...who knew?) and Sangue di Giuda.

Sangue di Giuda wines can be comprised of the following varieties: Barbera 25-65%, Croatina 25-65%, Uva Rara, Vespolina and/or Pinot Noir 45% max. The bottle I was able to find, the Bruno Verdi Paradiso 2009 ($17.50), is made up of 65% Croatina, 20% Uva Rara and 15% Barbera. Barbera is widely grown throughout Italy (it is the second most planted red grape behind Sangiovese), so I'm not really going to write much about it here, but Croatina and Uva Rara are, as the latter's name might suggest, a little more obscure.

Uva Rara

Croatina (which you can read much more about in this post) is grown mostly in northern Italy where, unfortunately, one of its many synonyms includes Bonarda. Croatina is unrelated to the grape previously featured in a post on this website concerning the Argentinian Bonarda (which, as helpfully pointed out in the comments to that article, seems to be actually related to the French grape Corbeau rather than an Italian variety, as I had surmised). It is also unrelated to Bonarda Piemontese, which Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch refer to as the "real Bonarda." It's kind of tricky. If you're in Oltrepò Pavese or Colli Piacentini (in Emilia-Romagna), then Bonarda means Croatina. If you're in northern Piedmont, what's called Bonarda Novarese is actually Uva Rara. If you find something labeled "Bonarda Piemontese," buy it for me and I'll reimburse you for it, because it's apparently pretty rare even though it's the "true" variety for the name in Italy. To add to the confusion here, when you try to look up Uva Rara on Wikipedia, it automatically redirects you to the page for Vespolina, but I believe that these are two different grapes (especially given that they are listed separately in the DOC regulations and because they are given separate entries in Oz Clarke's book, Bastianich and Lynch's book and on winecountry.it). To sum up, Croatina and Uva Rara are distinct grapes that are unrelated not only to each other, but to other grapes that, like them, march under the Bonarda banner in any of the many places that something called "Bonarda" is planted.

So, let's just pretend for a minute that we've got the grapes straight and move on. As a final twist, the DOC Oltrepò Pavese Sangue di Giuda doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the style of wine in the bottle. Sure, we know what the grape varieties are, but the wine can be made in a variety of styles ranging from dry and still to sweet and frizzante. There is no restriction on the wine style in this DOC, only restrictions on the grape varieties that can be used. How do you know what's in the bottle? Well, the alcohol content is a pretty good indicator as to the sugar content of the wine. Lower alcohol contents (under 9-10%) mean that there's probably some residual sugar that wasn't fully fermented. Something in the 12-14% range almost certainly mean the wine was fermented to dryness. As to whether the wine is still or frizzante, I'm not sure if there are any dead giveaways. I would guess the sweeter wines are more likely to be a little bubbly while the dryer wines are more likely to be still, but if you aren't sure, you either have to roll the dice or ask someone at the shop to let you know.

The Bruno Verdi Paradiso bottling clocks in at 7.5% alcohol and is slightly sweet. In the glass, the wine had a dark mulberry color with slight but visible bubbling. The nose was thick with crushed berries, dark plums and black cherry. It has a very alluring fruity smell to it. In the mouth, the wine is slightly fizzy and just a touch sweet. It is very grapey and fruity. It makes think about what grape soda would taste like if they took about half the sugar out. It has a rich texture and good acid with luscious purple and black fruits. Stylistically, I would say that this is right between a bone dry Lambrusco (a real one, not Riunite) and a sweet Brachetto D'Acqui. The sugar in this isn't so heavy that it must be relegated to the dessert table and I think it would be very interesting with a spicy barbecue meal, though it would be equally at home with a light dessert as well.