Carmenère Wine Guide: Chile's Lost Grape Rediscovered

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The story of Carmenère is one of wine’s great mysteries. For over 150 years, Chilean winemakers were growing one of Bordeaux’s original six noble grapes and calling it something else entirely. It took a French ampelographer visiting Chile in 1994 to spot that what everyone had been labelling Merlot was actually Carmenère, a variety thought to have been wiped out by phylloxera in 19th-century Europe. The discovery changed Chilean wine overnight.

Chilean Wine Guide: Regions, Grapes, and What to Drink

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Chile is one of the most exciting wine countries in the world, yet it rarely gets the attention it deserves. Squeezed between the Andes mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Atacama Desert to the north, and Patagonian ice fields to the south, Chile’s vineyards exist in a natural greenhouse, protected from pests, blessed with sunshine, and cooled by mountain air and ocean breezes.

The result is consistently ripe, clean fruit at prices that make equivalent quality from Europe or California look expensive. If you have not explored Chilean wine properly, you are missing one of the best value propositions in the wine world.

Carmenere on Sommo — AI Wine Scanner, WSET Prep & Wine Journal App

Carmenère Wine Guide: Chile's Lost Grape Rediscovered

Chilean Wine Guide: Regions, Grapes, and What to Drink