Wines I'm drinking: Carménère (Follow-up)

I recently wrote in these pages about three Carménère wines I tasted with friends (you may want to start with that post). The tasting fueled my curiosity. I quickly located another five 100% Carménère wines from Chile at Beverages and More. Tasting notes follow. My post of January 4 (linked above) gives some background information about this intriguing grape.

2007 Natura Valle Colchagua Carménère 

Very, very deep blackish red. Darkest of the five wines. Strongly scented. Attractive right off the bat. Citrus scents, leather, roasted meat, graphite. Not much overt fruit, but a hint of raspberry with a little time. Later seemed more like black raspberries and a little oak became apparent. Crisp and fresh on the palate. Rich, good body, good acid as well, and has quite a long finish for a wine in this price range. Nice chewy, grainy tannins on the finish. With some air, gained an interesting, slightly raisiny flavor. Gained a nice core of restrained fruit. Very tasty. The best of the five wines in my view. (Beverages and More, $9.99, $6.99 with members discount card)

2007 Cono Sur Valle Colchagua Carménère 

Medium-deep blackish purple. A bit thin at the edge. Floral, perfumed scents. Lily-like scent. Roasted meat. Something reminiscent of a wool rug (reminded me of my days selling oriental carpets). Rather closed on the palate. A bit nondescript. No obvious faults, but very closed still. On the tart side--probably good with rich meat dishes. Grainy, gritty tannins on the finish. With a little time, the wine opened up to reveal citrus scents. Slowly gained in length and body, but still quite closed. Needs time. I tasted all five wines again the following day. This was still tight, but really not bad at all. Will be quite drinkable with a little patience. Probably my second choice among the five--but see the notes on the Explorador wine. (Beverages and More, $8.99, $6.99 with members discount card)

2005 La Playa Valle Colchagua Block Selection Estate Reserve Carménère

Similar in color to the above wine. Very different on the nose, though. Scents of passion fruit, vanilla, and perhaps lime. Meaty scents as well. A bit flat at first on the palate. Not a lot of fruit. Fine, grainy tannins again. Fairly short, but comes back with a certain lingering spiciness at the back of the tongue. The initial impression it left was rather austere. This wine developed a nice chocolatey scent and more apparent acidity on the palate with time, but remained rather unchanged even the following day. (Beverages and More, $8.99, $7.99 with members discount card)

2006 Casillero del Diablo Rapel Valley Carménère

Very deep purplish black, but not quite as deeply colored as the Natura wine. A hint of mint and the scent of wool rugs again. Later meaty scents and something floral that I couldn't pin down. Vanilla scents. Oak. Light-bodied, but balanced on the palate. Pleasant fruit, bright acidity, light tannins. Moderate length. Attractive subtle sweetness on the finish. Not a lot of up-front fruit, but more immediately approachable than either the Cono Sur or La Playa wines. Later strong scent of leather and oak scents more pronounced. Light, but tasty in a delicate, easy sort of way. Still later the oak scents seemed even more pronounced and I began to detect a hint of lime. Overall impression is of light-weightedness. I have also tasted the 2007 version of this which had more character--reminiscent of boysenberries, milk chocolate, and roses. The 2007 had better fruit as well, with a smooth chocolatey finish. (Beverages and More, $7.99, $5.99 with members discount card)

2007 Explorador Central Valley Carménère 

Medium-deep purple. Rather closed nose but with a little mint and citrus. Smelled noticeably alcoholic, which made it seem a trifle out of balance, but, at 13.5%, this wasn't the strongest of the five wines (the Natura is 14%, the Casillero del Diablo 13.8%, although label values have to be taken with a grain of salt. I think the label percentage only has to be within 1.5 points of the actual alcohol level. Wine producers use that latitude for a variety of reasons). Light and grapey on the palate. Not a lot of tannin. Seemed fairly short, but with nice suggestions of raisins on the finish. Also a slight, attractive bitterness that reminded me of Valpolicella. Had what seemed a masked core of fruit likely to come forward with time. This wine had changed more than any of the others on the following day. I kept coming back to this one. With air, it gained a balanced sweet fruitiness on the palate that was very attractive. I liked this about as well as the Cono Sur wine. I would buy it again.  (Beverages and More, $7.99, $6.99 with members discount card)

Having recently tasted these five wines, the 2007 Casillero del Diablo wine, the three wines of the earlier tasting and the Carménère rosé mentioned in my January 4 post, I can say that Carménère is capable of good things at very attractive prices. The wines all seemed to be marked by distinctly meaty, leathery scents. The other characteristic they shared was finely-grained, almost gritty tannins on the finish. Wines to explore further.  

Wines I'm Drinking: Carménère

Last night friends and I blind tasted three Chilean wines made from the Carménère grape, a fairly obscure variety that interests me for its history and the quality of the inexpensive (so far) wine it makes. We started the evening with a rosé made from Carménère, called (oops). Yes, (oops). Don't let the silly name, the gimmicky packaging, or the ridiculous price ($2.99 at our local Grocery Outlet) fool you. This is well made, delicious wine. It is a very pale orange-pink. It smells of honey and strawberries and has real presence on the palate--which is a bit startling given the pale color. It tastes vaguely like honey, but it is quite dry and crisp with acid. It lingers for a long time on the tongue, finishing with a hint of spicy prickle. I seem to have bought the store out of its supply, but don't hesitate to buy this if you see it and happen to be a fan of rosé, like me. 

Why (oops), you ask? Wine enthusiasts probably know the story by now, but Carménère is Bordeaux's "lost grape." Once grown in that famous region, it appears to have been entirely neglected during the slow recovery from phylloxera (the aphid-like root louse that devastates vines that have no resistance to it) that began late in the 19th century. No one seems to know exactly why it wasn't replanted (I'm still doing research, but the most obvious explanation would be low yield relative to the more familiar Bordeaux grape varieties*). 

Carménère, once counted among the noble grapes of the Bordeaux blend, alongside Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec, apparently died out in France. Cuttings were alive and well and making wine in Chile, however, although these were confused there with Merlot (grape varieties can be very difficult to sort out). Recently, scientists have determined that a significant fraction of Chile's Merlot acreage is actually Carménère. Oops!--and thus, the name of our rosé. It is indeed a mystery to me why the variety was allowed to die out in Bordeaux. It appears to make excellent wine. At least in the Chilean examples, it seems to be consistently more interesting than indifferently made Merlot. The best of the Trader Joe's cheapies we tasted last night (at only $4.99 a bottle) was a cut above typical California Merlots that routinely sell for four times the price or more (your experience may be different). At any rate, this is a variety well worth exploring.  We tasted the following wines. Brief tasting notes follow. 

    

2006 (oops) Valle Central Rosé of Carménère (Grocery Outlet, $2.99)

2005 El Toqui Rapel Valley Carménère Reserva (Trader Joe's, $4.99)

2005 Tierra Salvaje Maule Valley Carménère (Trader Joe's $5.99)

2007 Panilonco Colchagua Valley Carménère Reserve (Trader Joe's $3.99)

2005 El Toqui Rapel Valley Carménère Reserva

Unanimously chosen by our group as the best of the three red wines. Excellent and recommended. A steal at $4.99 a bottle. Deep medium red (not tending either toward purple or garnet). Scents of butter and butterscotch at first. Distinctly meaty scents as well, tending toward leather with more air and time. Something suggestive of fig jam and dark berries. Later got hints of bacon, cayenne pepper, and rose water on the nose. Very interesting. Soft tannins on the palate. A bit closed at first, but opened up to reveal a nice core of concentrated fruit and leather again. Elegant, well balanced, and delicious. While this may be a bit too reserved to appeal to people raised on California fruit bombs, it is delicious wine, in my view. 

2005 Tierra Salvaje Maule Valley Carménère

Paler than the first wine and tending a bit more toward garnet in color. Quite closed at first but scents suggestive of roasted meat, leather, and blueberries develop. Distinctly meaty on the palate--roasted meat. Light tannins. Less body than the first wine. Moderate length. More tannin on the finish. Didn't evolve much in the course of the evening. Good, but not especially exciting wine. 

2007 Panilonco Colchagua Valley Carménère Reserve

Most tasters liked this wine the least. Deep purple-red, but not as dark and inky as some Carménère I've seen. Good fruit on the nose. Very strong vanilla scent. Hints of honey and raw beef. Blueberries. Tastes of vanilla, too. Light fruit on the palate. Moderate tannins. Quite drinkable, but overall lacking in body and interest. Tastes thin compared with the other two. After a while it began to develop the banana-like scent typical of Beaujolais Nouveau and some citrus notes. Reminded me of the wines of Cahors in its somewhat austere, tannic, citrusy aspects. 

I'll be hitting Trader Joe's today to buy a case of the El Toqui wine.

[Update: Just back from Trader Joe's. Got my wine. Next door, at Beverages and More, I found five more Carménère wines. I couldn't resist. Stay tuned for more notes.]

[More notes on Carménère wines]

*Jancis Robinson notes in her Guide to Wine Grapes (Oxford University Press, 1996) that Carménère is susceptible to coulure (a failure of the grapes to develop after flowering), which causes low yields. It can also be noted that the grape is a late ripener, which may simply have made it inconvenient to work with. She points out that Grand Vidure is a synonym, used by Carmen in Chile, a company that has been a pioneer in the Carménère revival. In her more complete Vines, Grapes, and Wines (Mitchell Beazley, 1986) she notes other synonyms: Carmenelle, Cabarnelle, Grand Carmenet, and Carbouet. Is it any wonder that wine confuses people? Carménère seems to be planted in small quantities also in northeastern Italy (Colli Orientali).