Um, wow. Garishly purple in a peculiarly children's-television kind of way, I can easily imagine Nomi Malone shoplifting some of this at a Sephora in Las Vegas. However, the way the wine smells is a hundred and eighty degrees away from its look: strangely dark, slightly peppery, with a nearly pickled, shoe-polished, venison meat pie edge to it, it's a wonderfully seductive, complex wine of the sort you generally don't associate with carignane.
Delightfully immature, the wine doesn't seem like it's time to integrate itself just yet: there's an initial impression of candied red fruits that quickly swaps itself out to reveal dusty wood shop shelves, somewhat clunky acidity (that thankfully keeps it all in check), and a thick, fat outro that slides by on groovy, tannic rails towards a long, gentle finish redolent of unfashionable hard candies and earthy, loamy sweetness with suggestions of forest flowers - it almost reminds me of the taste of oxalis that grows near California redwoods, with an almost citric tang combined with that rich, dark, earthy fruit.
This is frankly insanely delicious - I wish I had some Parmesan cheese to eat with it, but alas, I don't. If more wineries made carignane like this, I suspect more people would drink it. Then again, outside of California and Chile, I'm not sure there are a lot of winegrowers who take the trouble to grow it well.
Delightfully immature, the wine doesn't seem like it's time to integrate itself just yet: there's an initial impression of candied red fruits that quickly swaps itself out to reveal dusty wood shop shelves, somewhat clunky acidity (that thankfully keeps it all in check), and a thick, fat outro that slides by on groovy, tannic rails towards a long, gentle finish redolent of unfashionable hard candies and earthy, loamy sweetness with suggestions of forest flowers - it almost reminds me of the taste of oxalis that grows near California redwoods, with an almost citric tang combined with that rich, dark, earthy fruit.
This is frankly insanely delicious - I wish I had some Parmesan cheese to eat with it, but alas, I don't. If more wineries made carignane like this, I suspect more people would drink it. Then again, outside of California and Chile, I'm not sure there are a lot of winegrowers who take the trouble to grow it well.
Chris, you should try the Morande Edicion Limitada Carignan.
It is my personal favourite Chilean wine
PS -
Just so there's no conflict of interest
I'm the guy who supplies to Julian :)
James! Luckily enough, the only other carignane (apologies for using the Californian spelling) that they had in the Santiago airport was... wait for it... the Morande Edicion Limitada Carignan. I did buy a bottle of that and was thinking I'd wait a couple of years before cracking it open. On the other hand, if you think it's drinking well now, I'm open to suggestions! :)