From our winemaker Marcelo Papa

I love Carmenere!

Friday, 9 July 2010

One of my all time favourite grapes is Carmenere. As Chile’s signature variety, this really has emerged as a popular wine over the last decade or two. What’s more, it is only planted in Chile!

A native French variety, it was almost wiped out completely after the great phylloxera plague, and then resurfaced in Chile at the end of the 19th century. Carmenere is just such a fascinating variety, producing wines of intense colour, soft tannins and restrained acidity.

Now, Carmenere isn’t the easiest of grape varieties to grow, and it certainly needs a lot of love and attention in both the vineyards and winery. It needs to be ripe, ripe, ripe! Luckily, the climate in Chile is ideally suited to the production of premium quality Carmenere – the cooling Pacific winds, warm, dry sunny days and cool nights allow the grapes to ripen slowly, ensuring maximum flavour development and tannin structure.

In my opinion, the best place to grow Carmenere in Chile is in the Cachapoal Valley, to the south of Santiago. Our Peumo vineyard is just perfect for growing Carmenere – a nice warm vineyard site that ensures we have fantastic ripe berries bursting with flavour!

2010 has been a great vintage at Peumo, however a mild spring meant we picked a bit later than usual. As always, patience was the key! We had to sit tight, and wait for the grapes to ripen fully – we don’t want grapes that may be a bit green, as it makes the wine more tannic and taste a bit thin on the palate. So we had to wait a bit longer than we’re used too, but that’s what you need to do if you want to make a great wine!

Our 2010 Carmenere is now maturing in oak barrels, but if like me you can’t wait, then grab a bottle of our 2009 Casillero del Diablo Carmenere from your nearest store!

A break from the vineyards...

Thursday, 3 June 2010

Vintage 2010 is drawing to a close – we will soon be ready to bottle the first of the whites, and the reds are maturing away nicely in the cellar. It’s been a great vintage, with the wines looking outstanding across the board. I’m particularly pleased with the quality given the tough times we faced after the recent earthquake.

Whilst the work in the vineyards is over for the time being, we are busy putting the finishing touches on the 2010 white wines in the cellar. The whites wines are looking (and tasting!) awesome – crisp acidity, bursting with vibrant fruit flavours and showing great length and complexity. The reds spending much needed time ageing and maturing in French and American oak barrels to give greater depth and complexity to the wine.

Throughout the ageing process we are constantly tasting, testing and analyzing each and every barrel to ensure utmost quality. On average we age our reds for around nine months depending on the style we are looking to achieve – less oak for Pinot Noir for example, a little more time in oak for a bigger wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon.

I recently showed my new 2010 vintage wines to some journalists in the UK, and the feedback was nothing but positive. Always good to get some good comments on my wines! Whilst in the UK I had the chance to turn movie star. Not quite a Hollywood blockbuster, but I did spend a day in front of the camera shooting a series of video tasting notes for the full range of Casillero del Diablo wines. A great experience, but I have to say, extremely exhausting!

Now I know how George Clooney must feel…. Look out for these tasting notes on our site, our retailers websites and You Tube soon!