Chile - Paso del Sol - Valle Central - Carmenere 2007

This was one of those..."never seen - need to try" bottles. I had never heard of the Carmenere Grape so I thought I would give it a whirl.

Appearance
it has a beautiful deep crimson colour and looks like it could be quite full bodied round flavour.

Nose
It smells not too intense but definately has a number of different aromas going on. I could smell cherries, but at the same time at a very vegetal/spicy flavour. It kind of reminded me of a Cabernet Savgignon variety

Taste
- it was a off dry flavour and felt kind of velvety and smooth in my mouth.
- it had low acidity flavours (it didn't have the sensation of the opal fruit sweets)
- it was low in tannin (it didn't make my mouth feel at all furry)
- I was expecting a rich heavy flavour but infact it was more of a medium flavour
- it didnt have much length but the flavour just didn't disappear so I am going to go with medium cos it did hang around a bit.
- It kind of went through a number of flavours, my first thoughts were cherries, black berries type fruit but as I drunk more the flavour became more spicy sort of black pepper and it was also a bit veggy - I couldn't identify a vegetable so I would say it was quite an earthy flavour....not so bad that you felt you were eating the ground..it was nice.

I had never head this grape variety before but I would buy it again...its very similar to a Cabernet sauvignon but from reading up on it it seems to get mixed up with the merlot variety. I disagree I think its more cabernet savgignon than merlot.

WINDEX: 9 out of 10.

I thoroughly enjoyed this bottle. We had a roast beef dinner with it and it was a good match. roast vegetables really matched well with this Carmenere grape. I would recommend this grape variety for sure and I will be looking out of more of it ..... It wasn't that expensive either. I can't remember the exact price but it was around Dhs. 30 - 40 which is a nice price. So, cant find a cabernet then try this ......its stands on it own and had made a great impression on its first introduction... But once again a fantastic wine from Chile....they are unstoppable this chilean wines...

Want to know more about this grape then visit Carmenere Wine on Wikipedia which talks about it in greater detail. It has French origins but is extinct in France and primarily grown in Chile now.