Bonarda dell'Oltrepò Pavese

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Terroir

• The landscape is of a sub-Apennine type, with landslide instability and extensive erosion zones where formations of marls, calcareous sandstones, galestro, and gypsum come to the surface.
• The hillside soils, where most of the Oltrepò Pavese's vine-growing area is found, belong to the Cenozoic and occur in highly varied bands.
• The Miocene formations comprise five distinct stages extending over more than 16,000 hectares across the hills and lower mountains, with the Messinian characterised by pale yellow marls with calcareous lenses.
• There is a geological unit composed of lenticular bodies of medium- to coarse-grained crystalline gypsum, which outcrops over limited areas near Garlassola, Mondondone, Corvino S. Quirico, Montepezzata, and Cà Bianca, yet is intensively planted with vines.
• The 0 °C isotherm runs at approximately 800 metres elevation and can be considered the boundary between the hill zone and the properly montane zone, with a mean annual temperature of approximately 11–12 °C in the band between the foot of the hills and 600 metres.
• The average distribution of rainfall over the year is characterised by a maximum in November (143 mm) and a minimum in July (47 mm).

• The Consorzio di tutela was established in 1961, before the founding legislation for DOC appellations, to promote and build the image of the territory's typical wines.
• The wine Oltrepò Pavese, including the Bonarda style, was recognised as a DOC by Presidential Decree of 6 August 1970, while Bonarda obtained its own autonomous DOC by Ministerial Decree of 3 August 2010.
• The grape variety used is Croatina, traditionally called Bonarda in the Oltrepò and Piacentino areas, and distinct from the Piemontese Bonarda variety used in other DOC appellations.
• In 1884 the Oltrepò Pavese counted approximately 225 native grape varieties, whereas today around a dozen are most widely grown, among them Croatina, planted across 3,900 hectares.

• The wine presents a deep ruby colour with violet highlights, brilliant and of medium-to-good body, with a refined, intense, clean and vinous bouquet showing notes of marasca cherry and blackberry.
• On the palate it is balanced between dry and rounded sensations, lightly tannic, and of medium-to-long aromatic persistence, while it may also be dry or off-dry, fresh and occasionally lightly sparkling, with fairly saline minerality.

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in Italy

Sources

• eAmbrosia register (EU) — File number PDO-IT-A0973
• Official trade body site — Consorzio Tutela Vini Oltrepo Pavese