20 Dec Please The Palate Wine of the Week: Bonifacia Wines 2020 Teroldego, Heringer Vineyard, Clarksburg

Looking at the glass, the wine is a deep, inky purple color. It is fair to think the wine will be a big, heavy red wine. Yet it was anything but that. Instead, it was very acid-driven with beautiful violet and dark red fruit aromatics. That is why the Bonifacia Wines 2020 Teroldego, Heringer Vineyard, Clarksburg is the Please The Palate wine of the week.

About Bonifacia Wines

Bonifacia Wins was started by Anna Bassett-Lopez in 2019. Anna did not grow up around wine. Rather, she attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where she worked in the chocolate lab and graduated with a degree in Food Science. While attending a career fair, Anna met a winemaker and accepted a six month job in Paicines. She loved it and focused her energy on wine. Anna worked harvest and production internships and rose through the winemaking ranks at facilities both massively large and very small. She worked at Oyster Bay in Marlborough, New Zealand and Stone Tower in  Leesburg, Virginia. She worked at Trefethen in Napa and Justin in Paso Robles.

In 2019, Anna picked the first grapes for her Bonifacia Wines label. Bonifacia is an Italian name which translates to “lifetime determined by you” and was coined in memory of her late uncle Bonifacio, who also enjoyed the world of agriculture. According to Anna, Bonifacia Wines are a tribute to Mother Nature, who guides the vineyards and maps the course of their life. In her first year she made Zinfandel. In 2020, she produced Chenin Blanc and Teroldego. In 2021, she added Malbec. All four wines were bottled in 2021. The colorful Bonifacia wine labels are inspired by quilts collected by her grandmother.

Teroldego

Teroldego is a red grape grown in the high elevation, cool-climate of the mountainous Trentino region in Alto Adige in northern Italy. The primary dark-skinned variety in Alto Adige, it produces a deep red colored wine with an intensely fruity character. It is used in blends to add color. While it is the primary grape of Alto Adige, Teroldego is also grown in Tuscany, Sicily, and Veneto for blending purposes. A small amount is grown in California, Australia, and Brazil.

Tasting Notes

Anna was not familiar with Teroldego but was looking for an “out there” red grape. She found a small planting of Teroldego in the Heringer vineyard in Clarksburg, not far from Sacramento. Anna was offered 1 ton of this rare and certified sustainably grown grape. The wine is unfiltered, un-fined, and racked before bottling.

The wine is a dark, inky color but the nose is lifted with dark red fruit aromas, pretty violet notes, and a touch of chocolate. On the palate, the wine has flavors of rhubarb and pomegranate and a mineral finish. There are soft underlying tannins and bright, fresh acidity, and a long finish.

Food Pairing

Despite the deceivingly dark color, this wine is super food friendly with is bright acidity. I enjoyed this wine with salmon and tabouli salad.

Where to Purchase

Bonifacia Wines is a small wine producer making 100+ cases per year. The 2020 Teroldego retails for $42 and is available directly from the Bonifacia website. The 2021 Teroldego is also available.