Canada’s first Carmenère is released in British Columbia
By John Schreiner
April 24, 2007
The Okanagan’s Black Hills Estate Winery created a sensation this spring by releasing, very quietly, the first varietal red wine made from the Carmenère grape.
The winery, best known for its fine Meritage blend called Nota Bene, produced 75 cases of Carmenère in the 2005 vintage, from the first harvest of its three-year-old planting. Black Hills kept such a tight lid on the information that none of its peers in the Okanagan even knew it was growing those grapes.
Two other wineries are known to have planted the variety – Sumac Ridge and Twisted Tree – and neither has yet had a commercial release. Sumac Ridge, in fact, may use its Carmenère to burnish its red Meritage.
Originally, Black Hills also intended to add the variety to Nota Bene, now a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet France. Then the winery decided that its Carmenère was too good to be lost in a blend. So the wine, after aging in American oak barrels, was bottled on its own. It was released earlier this year, just to a few restaurants. The wine was shown, perhaps for the first time, at a weekend tasting during Oliver’s Banée wine festival in late April.
To say that the wine created a sensation is an understatement. Dramatically spicy on the nose, the wine is a vibrant medley of cherry, blackberry, raspberry and spice flavours. Full-bodied and generous in texture, it has a finish that goes on forever.
The wine retails for $28.90 - but don’t look for it in a wine store. Landmark Selections, the winery’s Vancouver agent, parceled it all out among exclusive restaurants.
This is a variety with an interesting history. Into the 18th century it was a major red in Bordeaux. It fell by the wayside because it is susceptible to coulure, a weather-triggered condition that, during cloudy springs, reduces the vine’s ability to set fruit. The French abandoned Carmenère almost entirely after the phylloxera plague of the 1870s, although it has made a very minor comeback recently.
The variety thrived in the vineyards of Chile, many of which were planted with French vines before phylloxera. However, until the 1990s, viticulture in Chile was not well resourced. Most growers had no idea they even had Carmenère – many believed the variety was another clone of Merlot. The two varieties were often interplanted and all of it went into Chilean Merlot.
It was only in 1994 that the Chileans worked out the true identity of the variety. Carmenère ripens much later than Merlot, even later than Cabernet Sauvignon. Over the many years that it went into so-called Merlot wines, Chile was making a lot of Merlot with green, under ripe flavours.
Since the Chileans began treating Carmenère as a variety on its own, they have both upgraded Chile’s Merlot wines (no more green flavours) and they have begun releasing very fine wines from fully-ripe Carmenère. In the bright, dry weather of Chile, coulure is rarely, if ever, a problem.
The sumptuous flavours of varietal Carmenère wines caught the attention of several growers in the south Okanagan, where coulure also is not an issue.
The surprise about finding the variety in the Okanagan at all is that it is such a late ripening grape. None of Okanagan plantings, all in the hot south, is large, nor is anyone expected to plant very much. But in select locations, with good viticulture, Carmenère should succeed.
These are the restaurants in Vancouver that have, or had, this wine:
Cioppinos
Il Giardino
Salt Tasting Room
Quattro on Fourth
Lift Bar and Grill
Bishops
Chambar
Aurora Bistro
Joe Fortes
Cin Cin
Salmon House
goodgrog@shaw.ca
|
