Carmenère grape from Chile

10:03am Saturday 9th June 2007

In Tipping's Tipples this week, Mike Tipping is sniffing tomatoes as he finds much to enjoy in the carmenère grape from Chile.

Sometimes there is a distinct flavour or aroma in a wine that is hard to describe. I find this to be true with more complex examples of the Austrian grape grüner veltliner. Alongside its telltale taste of white pepper, this has a sort of fruity vegetable taste I can only describe as grüner veltliner flavour.

The same can be said for carmenère, the subject of this week's Tipping's Tipples. It has a spicy, herbal, earthy vegetable undertone which I just couldn't put a finger on, until a visit to Chile last year.

An Austrian in the group I was with suggested it was a taste similar to the smell of tomato leaves when you enter a greenhouse. That description will do for me and I must remember to ask her what that grüner veltliner flavour is next time we meet.

Chilean carmenère, is the grape that masqueraded there as merlot, until it was correctly identified in 1994. Actually it is part of the cabernet family and is considered one of the six original Bordeaux noble grapes. The vine-attacking phyloxerra root aphid outbreak of the 19th century did for its popularity in France however, where it is rarely grown but carmenère thrives in Chile's relatively disease free conditions.

A good bottle of Chilean carmenèere is just right for anyone who wants a full, spicy red. It is a halfway house between an easy drinking merlot and a more structured cabernet sauvignon. Try one of the following instead of your usual red this weekend, I dare you.

New to Majestic is Adobe Carmenère 2005 which is made from organically grown grapes. It tastes wholesome enough, nicely ripe and spicy, with plum fruit and (you've guessed it) nuances of tomato leaf.

The reliable Concha y Toro has turned up trumps with its Winemaker's Lot Carmenère 2005, which is full with lots of oak influence, dark fruit flavours, coffee, liquorice, vibrant tannins and... ummm... something akin to tomato leaves.

Those leaves figure in the powerful Yali Premium Carmenère 2004 too. This is a powerful wine which would suit lovers of Barossa shiraz and the ilk. Rich with black cherry and bramble fruit, it has black pepper notes, vanilla, chocolate, supple tannins and well-integrated oak.

It's a shame that Errazuriz Single Vineyard Carmenère 2005 is not more widely available, because it is a class act. The concentrated, rich, juicy blackberry fruit of this well-crafted example is complemented by notes of spice, chocolate, mouth-filling tannins and the clever use of both French and American oak.

Adobe Carmenère 2005, £6.24 (buy two save 20 per cent) at Majestic 17/20

Concha y Toro Winemaker's Lot Carmenère 2005, £7.99 at Oddbins 18/20

Yali Premium Carmenère 2004, £11.99 at Waitrose 17/20

Errazuriz Single Vineyard Carmenère 2005, about £12.99 from www.everywine.co.uk and www.stonevine.co.uk 18/20