TN: The Lost Nobel Grape Carmenère SANTA EMA 2004

[Don Giovanni]

TN: The Lost Nobel Grape Carmenère SANTA EMA 2004 Chile

The color is a wonderful deep ruby red with a violet glow...the edges are ruby red this is a dark ink wine...

The Nose is all about chili pepper with a cashmere cherry chocolate the pepper is not green, it's great...tobacco fresh and pleasant...

The mouthfeel is round , slippery, mellow, chili pepper with a cashmere dancing on the palate, carob, dark chocolate, dipped in cherry pie, soft supple, long hang time...so much from a forgotten grape...a Nobel great grape lost from Bordeaux

Eight months in oak...just right for this lost Nobel grape...Carmenère...

Alc by vol 13.8%

88 points

I found it astonishing that this grape could be mistaken for both merlot and cabernet frank... after tasting this wine grape more cab frank ish than merlot...really the mouthfeel is slippery like a cab frank and a cab sauv. blend... funny it ripens after cab sauv. this alone would make it site and AVA specific...one US producer is a BB Member Mary Baker at Dover Canyon Winery in Paso Robles web site Click On Me

Quote:

Originally Posted by OCW by Jancis Robinson

Carmenère

sometimes spelt Carménère and Carmenere, is rarely acknowledged in the vineyards of Bordeaux today but was, according to Daurel, widely cultivated in the Médoc in the early 18th century and, with Cabernet Franc, established the reputations of its best properties. He reports that the vine is vigorous and used to produce exceptionally good wine but was abandoned because of its susceptibility to coulure and resultant low yields. Its name may well be related to the word 'carmine' and even today it yields small quantities of exceptionally deep-coloured, full-bodied wines and may even be, like petit verdot, the subject of a revival. (Ch Clerc Milon, Pauillac classed growth, admits to its presence in their encepagement and the odd varietal emerged on to the Bordeaux market in the early 2000s.)

Its new power base is chile, where, it was discovered in 1994, a substantial proportion of the vines previously believed to be Merlot are in fact this historic variety, presumably imported directly from Bordeaux in the late 19th century. It ripens even later than Cabernet Sauvignon and if yields are limited, by grafting on to low-vigour rootstocks, for example, has the potential to make very fine wines, combining some of the charm of Merlot with the structure of Cabernet Sauvignon. Excessive herbaceousness can sometimes dominate its ripe tomato-like flavours but the Chileans had already acknowledged that at least 6,000 ha/14,825 acres of their vines were Carmenère by 2004. More than 4,000 ha of vines previously thought to be cabernet franc in northern Italy have also been identified as Carmenère, which may not be produced as a varietal DOC, DOCG, or IGT wine but may be used for blending in Veneto, Trentino, and Friuli. Ca'del Bosco of Lombardia make a sturdy, robustly-priced varietal called Carmenero from it. References

Daurel, J., Les Raisins de cuve de la Gironde et du sud-ouest de la France (Bordeaux, 1892).