TN '96 Bonny Doon Charbono

[Jerry D Mead]

Jancis Robinson, quoting Galet (the French ampelographer)gives the Dolcetto/Charbonneau story, the latter being synonym for the virtually extinct Douce noir (Nevada City winery actually labeled its Charbono that way for a few years, which Galet in turns says is a synonym for Dolcetto Nero.

In years past Inglenook (when it was still a real Napa winery) was almost famous for it and a bit of it sold at auctions even. It was hard as Ken Starr's heart and really showed its best at age 20 rather than 10. John Parducci made a rather more user friendly version, as did Franciscan back when Justin Meyer owned it. I believe Konrad (now Fife) made one too. This is all from memory (not the Galet stuff, but the California history stuff), but I'm usually pretty good at this kind of thing.

I actually still have some very old Inglenook Charbono that someone gave me out of their library. And, I almost forgot, John Parducii started a "Charbono Society" for a while...and one more winery that made it was the now defunct Angelo Papagni down in Madera County.

JDM