Álvaro Espinoza is perhaps best known as one of the key players in Chile’s fascinating story with Carmenère. It was during the serendipitous visit of French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot to the Maipo vineyard of Viña Carmen, where Espinoza was winemaker, that the fateful discovery of Carmenère took place. “I was showing him my best vineyard of Merlot, and he told me that it wasn’t Merlot at all!” recalls Espinoza of the infamous incident on November 24, 1994. “We were completely shocked when he said it was Carmenère.”
The discovery sent shock waves through Chile. Merlot was the country’s most valuable export at the time, and the wine industry didn’t want to burst that bubble by acknowledging that many of the vineyards of so-called Merlot were actually this long-lost Bordeaux variety. Carmenère was considered almost extinct.
Espinoza, however, was excited by the discovery, and he set to work with the equally enthusiastic CEO of the winery to sell the world’s first commercial release of Carmenère in more than a century and a half. “We felt like a transcendental winery for rediscovering a variety that was lost,” he enthuses. “But the Chilean wine industry reacted very negatively at first… I received a lot of threats in those first months.”
Despite the pressure to keep quiet about the discovery, Espinoza took that first vintage of his Carmenère to market and toured the USA, sharing the wine and the story with the press. His wine garnered critical acclaim—enthusing the market and effectively convincing
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
