Above: winemaker and ex-football coach Dick Vermeil and Sports Illustrated writer and wine expert Paul Zimmerman (seated, right) reminisced about pigskins and old Charbono at the Wine Media Guild’s Charbono tasting this week.
Larger-than-life celebrity visited this week’s Wine Media Guild of NY tasting in Manhattan: legendary NFL coach and owner of OnTHEdge (Calistoga), Dick Vermeil (above) — one of the most down-to-earth megawatt personalities I’ve ever met — presided over a tasting of 28 bottlings of Charbono — including a rosé, a “Charbera” (Charbono/Barbera blend), and a fortified wine. Winner of the 1999 Super Bowl, Vermeil was portrayed in the 2006 film Invincible, the story of his ground-breaking 1976 “open” tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Charbono, you say? Erroneously thought by many to be a relative of Dolcetto (or even Barbera), Charbono is a rustic-tasting, tannic, but fruity and food-friendly grape that Italian immigrants favored in late-nineteenth-century California. Today almost entirely forgotten (there are only “84 tons of Charbono grown in the state” of California, according to enologist and man behind the Opus One project, Paul Smith of OnTHEdge), Charbono is a distinct cultivar grown by a small but devoted group of California wineries (the tasting included wines by Pacific Star, Oakstone and Obscurity Cellars, Shypoke, Robert Foley, Jospeh Laurence, Duxoup, On the Edge, August Briggs, Chameleon, Summers, Turley, Tofanelli, Schrader, Fortino, and Boeger).
A wide variety of styles — from the luscious and modern to the more lean and traditional — were represented at the tasting. My personal favorites were old bottlings of Charbono by Pacific Star, including a 1990 and a 1994 (above).
Because many of the vines are 70-80 years old, Charbono can be a late-ripening grape and “only 60% ripens fully,” noted winemaker Sally Ottoson, of Pacific Star, who first made Charbono in 1989. “That’s why it needs extended aging” in cask (she prefers neutral, large-format barrels) and in bottle, she said.
In his colorful address to the group, Wine Media Guild senior member Paul Zimmerman fondly remembered tasting Inglenook’s Charbono in the 1960s and observed that the tannic wines “tested your manhood.”
In other news…
The Brunello saga continues. Check out today’s post on VinoWire.
Do Bianchi 
I love Charbono. That would have been an event worth attending. Sigh…
Ah, charbono. There’s a picture somewhere around my computer (and even online I think, gulp) of me and an empty 3-litre bottle of 1981 Inglenook Charbono in a rather compromising position. Anyway, the wine was delicious, subtle and complex, with a savoriness that perfectly matched the braised lamb shanks we ate that night. It had aged beautifully despite spending many years on a closet floor in suburban Napa. A true testament to the old (dry-farmed?) charbono vines that were planted at Inglenook for much of the 20th century. I’m sure it’s all grafted, or replanted, to cabernet now–that terroir instead going towards the lofty Rubicon rather than an earthy old schooler like charbono. Although I’ll admit to quite liking Rubicon, it’s fun to imagine what prime Rutherford charbono would be like these days.
Thanks for the post!
– wolfgang
Coturri makes a good Charbono. I remember reading that it may have originated in the Savoie region of France and had previously been called Douce Noir. Nice post the other day on South Tyrol.
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