Re: Carmenere - please recommend!

If you're interested in Chilean carmenere recomendations... let me know

-Indirecto

Carmenero is an attempt by Ca del Bosco to break the taboo of Carmenere grape in Italy. With a lot of marketing, the wine is a "coming out" of sorts, as in theory no wine appellation in ITaly can use CArmenere, but in fact there are tons of Carmenere wine poduced, under the name Cabernet, mostly in the Veneto. This area has the largest surface area planted in Carmenere in the world, apparently surpassing even Chile. Much of the Cabernet Franc and some of the Cabernet Savignon planted decades ago in NE Italy was actually Carmenere. This has been a well known fact for years, but everyone chose to conveniently ignore it. In the Veneto much wine made from the cabernet varieties goes under the plain name Cabernet.

The wine from Ca del Bosco is good marketing. Does your have the picture of a wolf shedding a sheep's costume on the label? You must understand the media effect of this wine, it was much talked about, It's a cute idea, but the wine is a little overpriced.

The Carmenere grape can make very good wine. You will easily find Carmenere from Chili, where the production is huge. Plus it is mostly made from ungrafted plants.

I recently tasted an experimental bottling of Carmenere from its original soil in Bordeaux, at the local lycee viticole. Everyone found it very promising, especially an aged bottle that showed some pleasant tertiary aromas. I keep finding eucalyptus and other such mentholated aromas in it.

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

Not 100% right. There are a few obscure Veneto DOCs (Bagnoli [di Sopra], [Monte] Lessini) that allow Carmenere in the make-up:

and search for "carmenere".

M.