Wine Arcana

Grape

Douce Noire

Also known as Bonarda Argentina, Argentine Bonarda, Charbono, Corbeau

Douce Noire is a dark-skinned Vitis vinifera grape from Savoie, known in Argentina as Bonarda and in California as Charbono. Corbeau is the name used in the French varietal catalogue. Its modern significance is especially Argentine, where it supports both varietal red wines and blends.

The naming requires care. Bonarda is also used for other grapes in Italy, so a shared name does not establish a shared cultivar. This page brings Argentine Bonarda and Californian Charbono together through the documented identity with Corbeau.

Identity and historical home

Foundation Plant Services reports that DNA from Californian Charbono matches French Corbeau, and that molecular work identifies Argentine Bonarda with the same variety.1. University of California, Davis, Foundation Plant Services, “Grape Variety: Charbono,” citing Martínez et al. (2008), accessed 10 October 2026. The record distinguishes California's grape from Italian vines called Charbono, including Dolcetto.

Plantgrape identifies Savoie as Corbeau's origin and recognizes Douce noire as a name for French propagation material. That historical home is useful for understanding the vine, even though the scale of its present Argentine role is much greater.

Viticulture and wine character

In French reference conditions, Plantgrape describes a fairly vigorous vine with a semi-upright habit, suited to trellising and long pruning. It records mid-season maturity relative to Chasselas. These observations describe the vine under specified conditions, rather than fixing a harvest date for every Argentine vineyard.

The same account describes well-coloured wines with relatively modest acidity and tannin, and low-to-moderate sugar accumulation. Colour and astringency come from different properties of the skins and seeds, so a dark wine need not be especially tannic. Crop, ripeness, and extraction still alter the result. Plantgrape also notes greater susceptibility to downy mildew and anthracnose than to powdery mildew or grey rot.

Argentina's Bonarda

The INV's August 2026 account identifies Bonarda as Argentina's second most planted red variety in 2025, concentrated especially in Mendoza, San Juan, and La Rioja.2. Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura, “Informe Variedad: Bonarda,” 4 August 2026, reporting 2025 plantings. The grape's sustained place in these warm, dry vineyards makes it a useful counterpart to Malbec, with its own range of farming and cellar approaches.

Altos Las Hormigas's Colonia Las Liebres Bonarda 2024 gives a specific modern example. The producer combined fruit from overhead-trained vines in Luján de Cuyo with fruit from Paraje Altamira in the Uco Valley. It fermented in steel with a small proportion of whole bunches and matured the wine in concrete without wood. That sequence allows a red wine's fruit and texture to develop without adding new-oak flavour.

The producer's account of 2024 also describes different ripening patterns between its source areas during a season that included a prolonged heatwave. Bonarda's Argentine context therefore includes regional and seasonal variation, alongside its ability to serve as a familiar local red grape.

California and the shared vine

Foundation Plant Services maintains Charbono material collected from Napa and the former experimental vineyard near Jackson. These records document another part of the variety's living history. They establish the vine's identity and preservation; they do not imply that a California Charbono and a Mendoza Bonarda will taste alike. Site, harvest, and maceration remain consequential under either name.

Sources