We had the annual doctors association wine dinner yesterday and the theme I picked for this year is wines of South America. Now New World wines are often made with "International varieties" such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, the Pinot family, Cabernets etc, but sometimes certain lesser known grapes from the Old World fins a new lease of life in the new settings, often paradoxically leading to a renaissance of these wines from their place of origin.
This is the case with this set of South American reds presented on the day; the special grapes for which these countries are known turned out to be French in origin. We have a couple each of Argentinian Malbecs (originally from Cahors in France and a permitted red grape for Bordeaux), Chilean Carmenere (originally from Bordeaux and related to the Cabernets) and Uruguayan Tannat (from Madiran near the border with Spain).
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