In the 19th century, the phylloxera epidemic almost wiped all of France’s raisin plants, forcing French winemakers to start over with their plantations of Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Carménère. Their efforts worked and almost all of the strains were brought back to life, but the Carménère couldn’t adapt to the cold spring and early autumn rains of Bordeaux and got extinct.
      It was not until 1991, that the French ampelograph Claude Vallat pointed that some kind of Merlot produced in Chile wasn’t Merlot at all, but he couldn’t identify what type of strain it was. Two years later, Jean Michel Boursiquot, disciple of Vallat, finally concluded that the random plant in question was Carménère, a strain that for a century was supposed to be extinct!
    Everything after that is history. Chileans winemakers started to produced it and Carménère became a world known wine, winning prizes in Asia, Australia and the United States.

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     Carménère Ecohotel is a celebration of the chilean culture and heritage, and we start with wine!