Wine Focus for January 2017: Wines of Chile

[David M. Bueker]

Interesting. I was almost universally unhappy with Casa Del Bosque during my visit in 2013, as the wines were horribly over oaked.

[Jenise]

This is my list. https://www.winex.com/wines-PL-Chile-PN-0.html

I'll grab a 1/2 case since I have never really explored. I think every Chilean wine I have had has be supermarket level or some wine that got a big score and someone poured it for me.

Let me know if there is something I need to grab from this list.

Cheers,

Jason

Jason, I'm not very fam with Chilean wines either, but I'm about to post a rave about a carmenere from Perez Cruz and I see Winex has a cab sauv from this winery in the pile. (For only $13). Might be worth a tumble.

[Jenise]

Margaret, welcome to WLDG! Would welcome your notes and familiarity on Chilean wines.

Meanwhile, I have a TN.

Background: This was a gift from a mining company lawyer currently working on a project in Chile who lives in my nabe and comes to the tastings I organize. He said he went into a good wine store in Santiago and said he'd like to bring back something as a special gift for "someone who really knows their wine" and asked for a recco. We opened it and drank it, not completely by design, over a two week period. It was this:

2014 Perez Cruz Carmenere, Limited Edition, Maipo Andes, Chile, 14.0% abv
Day one: big, plush velvet fruit, black currant and chocolate, tannins seemed soft or hidden
Day three: spicy black fruit but also overwhelming and savage green notes. Yikes! Recork.
Day 11: Hey, things have changed. The green is gone. Every berry in the berryverse is in this bottle--but I'd say black currant and blueberry are out in front. The aromatics are hypnotizing--tons of interesting sweet spice like cinnamon and mace and something even more exotic that I can't quite put a name to, with plenty of added interest from sweet dark chocolate. And it's structural now: acidity's good and so are the tannins. This is the most serious Carmenere I've ever tasted. Well worth drinking as a sipping wine because it's such a delicious ride--food would be a distraction. Checked Winesearcher and it IS available in the U.S., though no 2014's were reported.

I travel to Chile every year for 6 weeks for work. There are so many outstanding Chilean wines that never make it to the states as they export 98% of their wines to Europe....

Margaret I would welcome any tips you have on wine tourism in Chile. It is somewhere I think I would like to go. Chilean wines seem to have gone off the radar here in New Zealand, where the focus has been on Chilean reds. The last one to pass my lips was the Concha y Toro Marques de Casa Concha Merlot 2011 tasted September 2015. It was much more generous and sumptuous than I remember most Chilean reds to be.

Good choice for the wine focus. I haven't paid Chilean wine the attention it deserves. Chile seems to be famous for two things. It is one of the few (and probably the largest in terms of production) places in the world uninfected by Phylloxera, and so its vines are ungrafted. Secondly, the vine that they thought was merlot turns out to be carmenere, a Medoc variety that disappeared after the 19th century Phylloxera outbreak.

Most of what we get around here from Chile is cheap quaffers, but there are a few serious carmenere and Bordeaux-style blends kicking around. In the cheap quaffer department, I'm fond of the "Oops!" red and white. The name comes from the carmenere misclassification--the red is carmenere with a bit of cabernet franc thrown in, and the white is carmenere vinified off the skins.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

About that Carmenere we drank: it was so good that I feel almost embarrassed about not having taking carmenere more seriously in the past.

Btw, most know that it's the 6th Bordeaux grape. And it's still grown there even though never (that I can recall) acknowledged as a constituent in a blend.

I'm surprised more of it's not grown in California. A Washington winery that has since closed (due to divorce and split of assets) did well with it in the better summers but not all years gave these grapes the kind of hangtime they needed. It was the only winery I knew of making it and I don't know what became of the vineyards I remember. Anyone know any domestic producers playing with Carmenere?

[David M. Bueker]

There are a bunch. Check CellarTracker. I did not recognize most of the producers, but saw Chalk Hill and Kent Rasmussen.

[Robin Garr]

Isn't Carmenere so similar to Merlot, though, that the Chileans mistook it for Merlot for a century or so?

[David M. Bueker]

The leaves are. The wines, not so much.

[Robin Garr]

The leaves are. The wines, not so much.

I guess those Chileans were just easy to fool.

[David M. Bueker]

Identifying vines is hard. Just ask Sean Thackrey. His "Syrah" was actually Petite Sirah.

The leaves are. The wines, not so much.

I guess those Chileans were just easy to fool.

I can't find much information about the use of Carmenere in Bordeaux. It largely disappeared after phylloxera. At the time the variety was "discovered" by the Chileans, there was believed to be only about 10 hectares of it left in France but since then there has been some replanting mainly on the Bordeaux right bank. The grape did not ripen reliably in Bordeaux weather conditions and was subject to coulure (loss of flowers and young fruit) in wet years but the climatic warming is changing that.

The only "grand cru" where I have found reference to the grape is Brane-Cantenac where a small plantation was made in 2007 and it now contributes 0.5% to the blend. According to the enthusiastic maître de chai even that small amount adds pep and personality to the blend and brings a touch of exotic fruit to the aromatic palette as well as a sweet sensation. He believes that, with global warming, it is essential for Margaux to develop the use of this grape.

BTW, there seems to be no consensus on the spelling of the grape. The Chileans drop the French accents but I have seen it written both Carménère and Carmenère in French; consequently I'm not sure how it should be pronounced.

Hello! I work with Wines of Chile and am happy to answer questions or point wine lovers in the direction of info sources.
For those looking for Carmenere, there are a few good recent blog posts with recommendations:
Carmenere: A Search For Identity
https://rockinredblog.com/2016/12/19/ca ... -identity/

Wines of Chile and Snooth Present Carmenere Master Class
http://winecompass.blogspot.com/2016/12 ... esent.html

Chillin' with Carmenere
https://thedrunkencyclist.com/2016/12/2 ... carmenere/

The Steady Rise of Carmenere
http://www.gabesview.com/blogposts/2016 ... of-carmnre

[David M. Bueker]

Welcome Erica.

Any regions that are up and coming/emerging? New trends? It's been several years since my last visit. Is biodynamics expanding? More organic viticulture?

[David M. Bueker]

We must have picked the right month. There is an article on Chilean wine in Wine & Spirits, and they have substantial Chilean wine reviews.

Good to have you here Erica, will look at your links.

Ditto to what Margaret says. I've been to Chile three times, twice on bicycle tours (great roads and beautiful scenery) and once with a wine merchant friend to explore wineries. There are wonderful wines to be had there, but just try to find them in the States. It's been about three years since the winery exploration trip, so I'm out of date on the wines, but I'd jump at the chance to take the same trip again if the opportunity arose tomorrow, especially in the winter as the seasons are reversed.

Ampelography (the identification of vines based on the appearance of the leaves, stems, and fruit clusters) is a very tricky and inaccurate business. Now that we have genome analysis, a lot of misclassifications have been discovered. Chilean "merlot" really being carmenere is a classic case. Folks had always said that Chilean merlot didn't taste much like merlot from elsewhere; they put it down to terroir or the vines being direct producers. Now we know it's because it wasn't merlot at all. Ditto with "gamay noir" in California, which turned out to be a clone of pinot noir.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Hmmm...not a lot of action here after the first few weeks. Maybe it's time for me to open one of my Don Melchors, send the month out with a bang.

Chile is not drawing the attention it used to. One Saturday afternoon I checked out the traffic for an hour downtown and both Chile and Argentina drew little attention. Just one store of course but I thought it was a valid looksie around the store which has a great selection.

New liquor store had a bottle open on the counter, "only been open one day, everyone likes it" I was told!

2014 Concha y Toro Carmenere Casillero del Diablo Reserva, Central Valley.

Think around $18 plus tax. Dark red purple, crushed berry nose, not too much alcohol Rahsaan.
Pretty average red, whoa some green pepper! Dark berry fruit, some tannins still, could be some blackcurrant here too. Can see this moving off the shelf as attractive packaging but that`s all really. Took one for the team here.

Bob - the Concha y Toro Carmenere is real hit and miss. I had couple of good bottles several years ago and then they seemed to drop in quality much like the one you had soI gave up on them.

[Jenise]

Tonight we opened a 2004 Don Melchor, the flagship cabernet from Concha y Toro's best vineyard. Have to admit, I've owned these about ten years and didn't time drinking according to anything I knew about the vintage, just loosely felt safe to leave them be based on what I understood from previous vintages of Don Melchor. Mistake! Though the wine lacks the black currant and eucalyptus aspects I fell in love with when I drank my first Don, the first glass is good. However, the second less interesting, dominated by cocoa. Lots of sediment--should have filtered it.

[Robin Garr]

Oops, a couple of days late. Worth breaking the deadline, though, for a pretty decent (aibeit a bit Californicated) QPR Chilean red.

Lapostolle 2013 "Casa" Grand Selection Rapel Valley Carmenère ($10.99)

Very dark, almost blackish purple nearly all the way to a garnet edge. Blackberries and blueberries and warm brown spice on the nose and palate, leading into a full, tart black-fruit flavor framed by brisk acidity and soft tannins that gain astringency on your cheeks and palate during a long, clean finish. Only 13 percent alcohol, but there's enough heat to make it feel like a bit more. U.S. importer: Marnier-Lapostolle Co., NYC. (Jan. 25, 2017)

FOOD MATCH: It went nicely with spaghetti with meatballs and tomato sauce, but if I had it to do over again, I might go with a less spicy meatball. The red peppers accentuated the otherwise reasonable level of alcohol in the wine.

WHEN TO DRINK: It's not meant for aging, but should hold well enough for a few years under good cellar conditions, particularly under the protection of a sturdy metal cap.

VALUE:
I got a surprising deal compared with the $13 average U.S. retail price on Wine-Searcher.com, but it's certainly a decent value under $15.

WEB LINK
Here's the winery fact sheet for Lapostolle 2013 "Casa" Carmenère.

FIND THIS WINE ONLINE:
Check prices and find vendors for Lapostolle "Casa" Grand Selection Rapel Valley Carmenère on Wine-Searcher.com.

[David M. Bueker]

Your comment about "californicated" raises a question that I don't think we really know the answer to: what does Chilean* wine taste like?

*Chile is too broad for a one taste answer. I know I am not familiar enough with various Chilean terroir to answer.