Chilean Carmenère
It’s a tricky grape to get right, but Chile’s winemakers are the best-placed in the world to do so, says Peter Richards MW. And as research develops, the quality bar gets ever higher
89 wines tasted A bit of a ‘mixed bag’, says Peter Richards MW, but with a high proportion of wines Recommended or better
Whisper it, but Chilean Carmenère may be at risk of having its thunder stolen. Its modern moment in the limelight came in 1994, when French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot identified it in what was supposed to be a pure Merlot vineyard. Until that point it had largely flown under the radar while giving Chilean ‘Merlot’ its distinctive character. And then, suddenly, it was outed – and a new category of Chilean wine was created, one that has been developing ever since. The variety is now the fifth most widely planted in Chile.
The spotlight on the Chilean vineyard continues, however – and it seems there will be more such varieties emerging. Particularly in Chile’s historic south, where a research project (as reported in Decanter’s October issue) recently identified more than 60 ‘uncommon’ grape varieties growing in Bío Bío, including 26 previously unrecorded elsewhere in the world. ‘It’s a tower of Babel on the shores of the Bío Bío!’ memorably commented local grower Juan José Ledesma.
Exciting prospects
Not bad for a wine nation long renowned for its steady, mainstream image. In this sense, Carmenère’s identification can be seen as a turning point – a moment when the country’s winemakers began a gradual pivot towards the exigencies and identities of their own vineyards rather than the demands of the market.
Because Carmenère, of course, has few international precedents outside Chile. Sure, there’s a fair bit knocking around in China and Italy, as well as odds and sods in North America, Argentina, Australia and of course its historic home in Bordeaux and southwest France. (The variety is closely related to Cabernet Franc and was long prized in Bordeaux but fell out of favour after phylloxera.)
It’s a rare international wine that majors on Carmenère and it boasts few centres of expertise, so Chile assumed this mantle by default. Ever since, it’s made steady progress, with recent Chilean studies on terroir and clones yielding valuable data while the winemakers involved have felt their way with what is a tricky variety.
Carmenère is a late-season variety that needs warmth but not excessive heat, as well as soils that are well drained but not too fertile. If harvested unripe, Carmenère can be virulently green; if overripe, its acidity plummets and it swiftly loses its hallmark herbal, leafy character. High yields and careless winemaking can be catastrophic; rainy autumns or poor vintages can be calamitous.
No wonder De Martino winemaker Marcelo Retamal terms it ‘the most difficult variety to make in Chile’, which may be in need of ‘a generational change to understand it properly’.
Such work continues apace – and deservedly so, because the glimpses of brilliance already afforded by the very best Carmenère (both solo and in blends) are tremendously exciting. The warm Rapel region (Colchagua and Cachapoal) remains Carmenère’s centre of gravity in Chile, though the likes of Maipo, Curicó and Maule are all capable of making excellent examples. Expect the Carmenère map to expand further in future, as forward-thinking wine-growers push back frontiers in the mountains and coast as well as north and south. Thunder or not, the Carmenère narrative continues.