29 January 2005

2003 Concha y Toro Frontera Carménère

2003 Concha y Toro Frontera Carménère. On the weekends, I enjoy an inexpensive bottle of wine to sip in the afternoon, perhaps with a good book or while catching upon on the wine blog reviews. For reasons that will become clear tomorrow, I've decided to plumb the depths of the Concha y Toro product line. At the very bottom are the Frontera wines, simple but decent table wines harvested from multiple fields, and sometimes outside growers. This one cost $4, so even if it tasted horrible, I'm not out much cash. But I've been pleasantly surprised. I wasn't familiar with this grape--I think it's extinct in its home of Bordeaux, where it was used as a blending grape. This wine is 85% Carménère, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Syrah. I don't know if I could identify this grape on its own, but I like this wine. It's like merlot with balls, if that makes any sense, and the supporting grapes definitely improve the flavor. It's something a little different, and solid enough to stand up to hearty beef dishes or spicy Indian/Mexican fare.

4 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Hi there Benito, I was just browsing, looking for wine cellar designs related information and found your blog. Very Nice! I have a wine cellar designs site. You'll find everything about wine, gift baskets, Napa Valley wine tours, and how to keep your wine properly chilled until it's ready to drink. Please visit, check it out and enjoy!

Crush59 said...

in fact, some chilean wineries are having problems with their merlot since the old days when they thought the carmenere was merlot...now that they have taken it "out" of their "merlot", the merlot suffers!! try some pure carmeneres from chilensis, calina or furlotti.
cheers!!