Life Style / Wine Grapes / Carmenère: Has synonym name Grande Vidure. Very limited plantings of this red wine grape are now found in the M?doc region of Bordeaux, France where it is used to produce deep red wines occasionally used for blending purposes in the same manner as Petit Verdot. The worlds largest vineyard area under cultivation of this variety is now found in the Santiago region of Chile, South America. Some claim that, in Chile, some individual plantings of this variety has been mistakenly labeled as Merlot due to certain ampelographic similarities. Recent genetic research has shown that the two varieties may in fact be distantly related. Others claim that, in France, the variety name is an alias for what is actually the Vidure, a local Bordeaux name for a Cabernet Sauvignon clone. Another theory holds that the true name should be Biturica, thought to be an ancient variety that originated from Iberia - (modern Spain/Portugal) - as claimed by Pliny, and currently a popular blending variety with Sangiovese in Tuscany, Italy, called 'Predicato di Biturica'.
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