Piggy Bank, Carmenere 2012, Chile
I featured the ‘Piggy Bank’ range of wines on wine-pages last year, an interesting set of very good wines where 50p from the purchase price of each bottle goes to a charity which people who buy the wines help choose via the Piggy Bank web site. They’ve just added a couple of new wines to the range including this Carmenere from the crisp and very northerly Elqui Valley in Chile. The nose has lots of herbal lift, a little like a Rhone Syrah in some ways with the signature smoky herbaceousness of Carmenere. But there’s loads of black fruit too and, on the palate it just bursts into life, a big wine with 14.5% alcohol showing the ripeness and giving the thick, glossy black fruit and a nice bittersweet plum-skin character. Ageing in American oak adds spice and smoke, in a wine that is hardly genteel, but is brimming with honesty and integrity. More details in the video. £7.99, www.shop.piggybankwine.com
