Carménère -- Chile's Main Red Grape, Once thought to be Merlot

First, though, the matter of accents...

I was in Chile in 1998 and happened to be at the Veramonte winery with three other writers and a guide. The winemaker took us to one of the vineyards, pointed to the grapes and the leaves on some vines, and said, “Merlot, right?” We assented, “Yeah, looks like merlot from the leaves and the color of the grapes,” or something like that. The winemaker said, “Wrong. It’s carménère.” Turns out that what generations of producers, winemakers and the drinking public thought were merlot vines and the wines made from them were actually carménère vines and wines. DNA analysis in the early 1990s had ascertained that indeed thousands of acres of merlot vines in Chile were actually carménère vines. It was all a big, embarrassing yet somewhat understandable mistake, since vines brought from Bordeaux to Chile in the 19th Century were often field-blends of carménère and merlot. Carménère, once widely planted in Bordeaux, was eliminated throughout the 20th Century. Anyway, the dichotomy between carménère and merlot was acknowledged by the Chilean government in 1996; since 1998 the grape has been designated on labels.