After leaving its ancestral homeland in Bordeaux, Carmenere has become the flagship grape of Chile. Originally a blending grape with Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon the varietal nearly died out during the phylloxera blight. Chile had established plantings of Carmenere just prior to phylloxera and had mislabeled them as Merlot, an error that was corrected through the advent of DNA profiling. As a result of this longstanding relationship many of the plantings in Chile are exceptionally old, and are ungrafted to boot! Clos De Luz’s planting dates back to 1945, yielding a dense and mineral driven red that evokes the memory of Bordeaux.
