Luscious wines from south of the Equator
We then came to a brave pairing — the Santa Digna Reserve Carmenere 2008 with Confit of Omega Egg Wrapped in Japanese “Panko” on Mushroom Ragout enhanced with home-smoked chicken breast topped with chive cream.Carmenere has been referred to as the lost grape of Bordeaux. It was almost wiped out completely in Bordeaux, France, after a plague of phylloxera (an aphid) destroyed the vines. Chile was found to be free of this pest, and the Carmenere vines were planted there.
The Carmenere we were drinking at Las Carretas was the first produced from the Miguel Torres estate. It had been enhanced with a small percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon to add structure. I liked the complexity in the wine, the spicy notes and the sweet and fruity tannins. Some veal, beef or fish would have been perfect with it, or the famous Chilean Conger Eel Chowder. Even Gabriel Fernandez Bosch, export manager of Miguel Torres Chile, who led the wine tasting, admitted it was a “difficult match with the egg.”