Did you drink a wine made from the Carmenère grape on November 24? Probably not. And maybe you were not even aware of the fact that this day was “World Carmenère Day”. But now you know for next year. The promoter is of course Chile. With a World Carmenère day the Chilean wine producers want to celebrate their very own grape.
Carmenère had a pretty shaky start to its career as Chile’s national grape. For a long time the producers thought they had Merlot planted in the vineyards. Around 20 years ago it was discovered that it was not. Instead it was Carmenère, the sixth red grape in Bordeaux. The Chileans were perplexed at first. Then they turned it into something positive. They adopted Carmenère and made it into their very own. Chile has a just over 8,000 hectares of Carmenère compared with 40,000 for Cabernet Sauvignon. So even if Carmenère is an important symbol for the Chilean wine industry, the quantity of Carmenère wine is limited. Read more about carmenère day.
If you are interested to really explore and discover the Carmenere wines and the country that produces them, then you can join us on a wine tour to Chile (and Argentina) with BKWine. Plan your next trip for February 2016.
