Bonarda is one of Argentina’s most planted grape varieties, with an impressive 18,500 hectares under vine. However, the widely planted Bonarda grape variety is notoriously tricky, both in the vineyard and in the winery, which is why it has almost completely disappeared from its native Savoie region in France (where it is known as Douce Noir). Its demise in France and Italy is due to these challenges, although with greater expertise in how to handle the variety it is beginning to see a renaissance as a quality grape variety beyond Argentina.
We got together with one of Argentina’s most experienced Bonarda winemakers to get the full insider’s guide to Bonarda as a grape variety: how it performs in the vineyard, the winery and eventually the wine glass!
Read on for our technical interview with Roberto González from Nieto Senetiner, who describes Bonarda in the vineyard (including its yield, canopy, ripening cycle), in the winery and in the wine glass. We also look at the key wine regions for Bonarda in Argentina.
A winemaker’s guide to Argentina’s Bonarda grape variety
Bonarda grape leaf & bunches @NietoSenetiner
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Bonarda in the vineyard
As a grape variety, Bonarda tends to have generous yields and is a challenge to fully ripen, explains Roberto. “Bonarda is a variety that is quite hard to mature, all over the world in fact. It is very high yielding naturally: Bonarda can produce 30,000 kilos per hectare. Compare that to Malbec, which can produce around 15,000 kilos per hectare, for example.
“Producing good-quality Bonarda in the vineyards is harder than producing a good-quality Malbec because you have to really work in the vineyards to control the yield. Malbec could have 1.20 metre-high foliage but Bonarda has a very limited canopy range of just 60cm, so it doesn’t have as many leaves to be able to give it the energy to mature.
“The majority of Bonarda in Argentina is trained in parral (pergola-style) because it was traditionally used for large production and the parral training system is also good for the health of the grapes because of the air movement. The parral support system (where the vines are trained much higher than with other systems) also means the vines are less likely to get affected by frost, and Bonarda is very vulnerable to frost.
“Although the parral was used historically, what we’ve found in our research by looking for the right balance between foliage and grapes is that VSP is best. We drop the yield of Bonarda to 10,000 kilos per hectare, and calculate on having 1.5m2 of foliage for one kilo of grapes.”
“That’s the big problem with Bonarda or Douce Noir in Europe – in cold regions it just didn’t work. Bonarda really needs a long ripening period to make good wines. You can make a fresh easy-drinking wine with it, but it is harder to make a concentrated wine.”
For a long time, Bonarda was mistakenly considered to be Bonarda Piemontese from Italy but in 2007 it was identified as Douce Noir. There are four known clones of Bonarda in Argentina (plus two in Italy and six in France) although research into the different Bonarda clones is still ongoing. Usually in mixed plantings, the Bonarda clones planted in Argentina perform similarly with the same high yield, small canopy and necessity for a long ripening cycle.
Bonarda in the winery
Roberto González from Nieto Senetiner
Bonarda can provide quite a challenge in the winery trying to produce varietal wines of character and quality:
“Bonarda is a low acidity variety and naturally has very high potassium (2g/litre) with a very high pH, so you have to add tartaric acid. The potassium levels mean that the natural tartaric acid precipitates very quickly, so you have to add between 1 to 3 grams per litre depending on the zone. [Malbec would be a maximum of 1.5 grams per litre by way of comparison.] The eastern regions of Mendoza need to add more tartaric acid, because the heat in the east means that because of the vine stress they have more potassium.
“You have to manage its acidity and pH permanently and it is also a variety that ferments very quickly. So you have to ferment at lower temperatures than you would for Malbec, for example. Bonarda also creates lots of lees, so you have to do very soft maceration so you don’t get green aromas in the wine. The lack of nitrogen (because of the poor soils of Mendoza and its productive nature) also means it has a tendency to be reductive. And Bonarda is also very vulnerable to Brett, and very sensitive to badly done malolactic fermentations. All in all, it needs careful control in the winery!
“Finally, you need to use oak in order to stabilise the colour, because although Bonarda as a grape variety has a lot of colour, it fades very quickly. But Bonarda also picks up oaky aromas very easily, so we find you want to keep the wine in oak barrels between 8 to 12 months maximum, and with a lighter toast.
“The benefit of Bonarda, though, is that is has soft tannins and great colour, so it is easy to blend in with other varieties – including Malbec. Bonarda also doesn’t have much of an aromatic profile, so it is good for increasing the volume of wines without dominating the blend. It also has naturally low alcohol, rarely above 13%, and that’s great in a place like Argentina.
“Bonarda is also very versatile so you can make red, rosé, white and sparkling wines from it!”
Bonarda in the wine glass
Bonarda is a variety with low acidity and medium to low alcohol. It has medium (minus) tannins, which are soft and approachable in youth. It has medium to full body and is fruit-forward and smooth.
It is a deep ruby colour with purple tones.
Key Bonarda wine regions in Argentina
“Bonarda was first grown specifically in Mendoza city (where the Quinta Normal de Mendoza was) in the 19th century, but then it really moved to San Rafael, where it became widely planted. During the early 20th century that was the most productive region for Bonarda.
“Today the majority of Bonarda production is in San Martin and in the east of Mendoza. This is because these warmer regions are better at ripening Bonarda. In the 70s the government also gave people a tax break or advantages if they developed agriculture in the desert of Mendoza, in the east, and that’s also why San Martin boomed for wine production with high-yielding varieties like Bonarda.”
Total Bonarda plantations in Argentina, by province (2018)
Mendoza: 15,418 hectares
San Juan: 2,280 hectares
La Rioja: 630 hectares
Catamarca: 122 hectares
Other wine regions of Argentina: 67 hectares
More statistics on South American wine production
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- Read more on Bonarda over at our sister-publication South America Wine Guide
