Carmenère was a Bordeaux grape that phylloxera pushed out of its homeland in the nineteenth century; it survived in Chile, brought over in pre-phylloxera cuttings — and for some 140 years Chileans grew and sold it as merlot. On 24 November 1994 the French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot, walking a vineyard near Santiago, identified the "merlot" that ripened weeks late as Bordeaux's lost carmenère.
Chile embraced the accident as a signature. Ungrafted, on its pre-phylloxera genetics, in the Andean foothills — Apalta and the Colchagua valley are its showcases — carmenère gives black plum, spice and dark chocolate, with a tell-tale tomato-leaf greenness when picked hurried and velvet when allowed to ripen fully.