|
16 August 2008 - In 1994 while studying Merlot vines in
Chile viticulturist Jean-Michael Boursiquit made a surprising
discovery: many of these "Merlot" vines there were in fact Carmenère.
During Bordeaux's early history Carmenère had been one of the French region's main grapes, but during the
phylloxera epidemic
of the late 19th century they were basically wiped out in France. And so Carmenère, whose grapes look quite similar to
Merlot's, passed out of the mainstream and became known only to viticulturists.
Chile stretches like a long sliver along the western coast of South America between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains
yielding many different climactic zones within the country. Phylloxera has never hit Chile, and probably never will. While many
of Chile's winegrowing regions are desert dry, they have an
abundance of stream water flowing down from the melting snows high in the Andes. When Chileans irrigate their fields
they literally flood them, making it hard if not impossible for any ground dwelling insects like phylloxera to survive.
The rise of California wine in the 1970s led other wine regions to start labeling wines based on the type of grape, which is also
called a varietal. Most common winegrapes are varietals of the European grape species Vitis vinifera. Well when Chile
started varietal labeling, no one had heard of Carmenère so it was labeled as Merlot. But over the years winedrinkers noticed
that Chilean Merlots tasted a little different. Enter the viticulturists. As Chile modernized it's wine industry to cater to
the export market in the US, these scientists studied Chile's soil and vines to maximize the quality of the wines. In doing so
they discovered Carmenère was still around in a big way after all. When Merlot started to loose it's popularity after the turn
of the century Chileans started to market the idea that, like Zinfandel in California and Malbec in Argentina, Carmenère was
a wine grown best in Chile. And with plenty of good examples out there, it's not a hard sell.
|