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The Carmenere grape is a wine grape variety originally planted in the Médoc region of Bordeaux, France where it was used to produce deep red wines occasionally used for blending purposes in the same manner as Petit Verdot.
Presently, it is almost impossible to find Carmenere in Bordeaux as a Phylloxera plague in 1867 nearly destroyed all the vineyards of Europe and especially the Carmenere grapes. When the vineyards were replanted the growers choose not to replant Carmenere since it was hard to grow in Bordeaux. Fortunately, this grape variety was imported into Chile in 1850. In Chile it was sold as and thought to be merlot until 1994 when Professor Jean-Michel Boursiquit of Montpellier's school of Oenology confirmed that it was Carmenere and not Merlot. *
The world's largest area planted with this variety is now found in the Central Valleys of Chile in South America.
Recent genetic research has shown that the variety may be distantly related to Merlot. It is claimed by some that the variety name is an alias for what is actually the Vidure, a local Bordeaux name for a Cabernet Sauvignon clone once thought to be the grape from which all red Bordeaux varieties originated. Another theory holds that the true name should be Biturica, thought to be an ancient variety that originated from Iberia (modern-day Spain and Portugal) as claimed by Pliny the Elder, and currently a popular blending variety with Sangiovese in Tuscany called "Predicato di Biturica".
External links
"Carmenere"