An accidental discovery: Carménère wine

I don't normally make oenological type blog entries, but I recently made an accidental discovery at my local wine store that is worthy of writing. Whilst searching for a decent New World wine which would also be bottled in a screw cap (thus dispensing with the need to use my ageing ye olde rusty corkscrew), I purchased a bottle of Chilean wine that was made with the Carménère grape variety. And my verdict ? Absolutely great taste full of character, spice and smooth tannins. It has gone straight to the top of Spherical Musing's nasha chart, usurping such perennial favourites like Bacardi, Baltika and Campari.

Found some interesting info on the web:

Carménère is an ancient variety, thought to have been one of the ancestors of several of the more common French varieties, and one of the original grapes of Bordeaux. It arrived in Chile during the 19th century in a shipment of Merlot vines, and growers inadvertently kept it alive for the next century and a half under the mistaken assumption that it was Merlot. Because the Carménère grapes were processed right alongside the Merlot, Chilean “Merlot” had a very distinctive taste unlike any other Merlot in the world.

Eventually, researchers decided to look into the reason behind this difference, leading to the identification of Carménère vines in the 1990s. Chile immediately latched on to its new discovery, and there are now many single varietal bottlings of Chilean Carménère on the market, as well as several Cabernet-Carménère blends.

Interestingly enough, the exact same thing happened with Carménère in Italy, except there it was confused with Cabernet Franc. In 1990, several vines at the Ca’del Bosco winery were identified as Carménère, not Cabernet; shortly afterwards, several producers in other Italian wine regions also discovered that they had been harbouring this vineyard stowaway.

While some esoteric wines can command ridiculous prices on account of their obscurity, Carménère’s low profile has kept its price down. A good bottle of Chilean Carménère usually goes for around $20 a bottle, often less.

Carménère tends to make deeply coloured wines; indeed, the name of the grape comes from the French word for crimson, carmin.