Parentage — Cabernet Franc × Gros Cabernet — old Bordeaux stock
black plum
paprika
green pepper when underripe
dark chocolate
blackberry
Budbreak
Mid-early
Maturity
Very late — after Cabernet Sauvignon; underripe it keeps a green edge
Leaf
Medium, orbicular, five lobes; turns a spectacular crimson in autumn
Bunch
Small to medium, conical, loose — fruit set is capricious
Berry
Small, spherical, blue-black under bloom; thick skin
Carménère is the lost grape of Bordeaux. A child of Cabernet Franc and Gros Cabernet, it was a staple of the pre-phylloxera Médoc under the name Grande Vidure — but it set fruit poorly in cool springs, and when the vineyards were reconstituted after the 1860s, growers quietly left it behind.
It had already escaped. Cuttings shipped to Chile in the 1850s, labelled Merlot, thrived in the Central Valley for well over a century under the wrong name, until the French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot, walking a "merlot" block on 24 November 1994, recognized the impostor. Chile has made the foundling its signature: crimson autumn leaves, spice and black plum, and a green edge unless the grape is picked fully ripe.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine