Carménere should be the King
 After going through an array of several wines, my thoughts did go to Mr. Jorge Heine, the previous ambassador when I used to tell him that Carménere should be the signature grape of Chile like Argentina maintains a hold on Malbec of Bordeaux, French Shiraz is the king from Australia, Pinotage brings memory of South Africa, Sangiovese spells spices from Italy and Sauvignon Blanc brings the bouquet from New Zealand.
Several people approached me singing praises of this varietal, which they were tasting for the first time. For records and for whatever its worth, I have repeated my thoughts to the new ambassador.
Incidentally, Carménere is also a French varietal which was knocked off by the Phylloxera more than a century ago and given up when the resurrection took place. It was misconstrued as Merlot till a few years ago when the mistake was realised and it is now bottled as such.
Alcohol Powers the Wines
One thought that nagged me throughout the tastings was the high level of alcohol in most red wines. Where Bordeaux scores and most new world fails, Chile being no exception, every wine tasted was above 14%- the universal danger zone for alcohol.
This included each of the Pérez Cruz I loved. Though the bottle read 14.5%, it was so well integrated that one did not complain. But it is difficult to drink such heavy wines with food, the harm-index of the extra alcohol notwithstanding. Chilean law allows to understate by .5% (or 1 %!). Wines with 15-15.5% alcohol need to reign in the devil, global warming notwithstanding.
During the recent tastings at TopWineSpain at Seville in Spain, this was also noticeable in wines from many regions. Fortunately, most producers privately admitted and said their winemakers are trying to find a solution, one being to buy new vineyards at higher altitudes where it is easier to lower the Brix level at the time of harvest. Of course, Mr. Parker would find these wines bold and beautiful!
Great wines at good price
Five years ago at a similar festival held at the Taj Hotel, I had predicted an exponential growth of Chilean wines in India. It has not been as high as predicted, partly due to the decrease in promotional efforts and partly because of other countries waking up, possessed with the determination not to relinquish an inch of their established territory (I am bored with repetitively mentioning the excuse of high taxes- especially in Maharashtra with the unfair benefits to the Indian wine industry).
The reason for my optimism was that Chilean wines are great value-for-money. They still are, though the national emphasis has been to shift to premium quality. So the motto now is 'Great wines at Good Price.' Says a confounded Somavia, 'The Korean market is also relatively young and comparable to India. The difference is that the Koreans don't want to go through the process of education by starting with the entry levels and reach the level of sophistication in 10 years and ask for our higher quality wines. They want our best, right now.'
True but perhaps their taxes are not as high as ours!
One can only wish the participating 13 good luck, and hope that Chilean wines would continue expanding with their earlier pace and help them increase the size of the pie rather than taking a larger slice.
Subhash Arora
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