The Wine Mine Blagging Toolkit - 5 wine nuggets with which to impress your friends...1. Nowadays, Carmenère is grown almost exclusively in Chile, although pockets can also be found in northeastern Italy and California.
2. Carmenère in France was decimated by the phylloxera epidemic of 1867. The French never re-introduced it due to its susceptibility to pests and relatively low yields. In contrast, Chile has remained phylloxera-free due to its geographical isolation (it is sealed off by the Atacama Desert, the Andes and the Pacific).
3. Carmenère in Chile was for many years incorrectly identified as Merlot, until genetic analysis in the 1990s revealed it to be the distinct Bordeaux varietal, originally planted in the Medoc. Chilean winemakers appear to have suspected that the would-be-Merlot was not the real McCoy, referring to it as rather apologetically as Merlot Chileno.
4. Carmenère needs more time on the vine than Merlot. It requires a fairly warm climate and does not respond well to high levels of rainfall.
5. Carmenère is one of the original six native Bordeaux varietals (the other five being Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot).
