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WINE with John Rozentals
FRANCOIS MARTENOT GRAND PRES MACON-VILLAGES
CHARDONNAY...HIGH QUALITY, REASONABLE PRICE.
France’s Burgundy region is obviously a large, diverse
and highly picturesque renowned for its beauty, both
natural and human-created.
Its cuisine is legendary, and one of its major centres,
Dijon, is home to probably the world’s greatest mustard.
With this surfeit of beauty and culinary excellence it’s
hardly surprising that the district is a favourite one for
tourists, including those on its famous river barges.
Winewise, Burgundy’s fame rests on two grape varieties
— chardonnay and pinot noir.
Some of the vineyards are tiny — limited at extreme to
just a few hundred vines — and the wines they produce
exist in a rare atmosphere of price and quality. Wines
can fetch thousands of dollars a bottle on release from
a great year.
Yet Burgundy can also produce remarkably good, quite
modestly priced wines.
Just how good was recently driven home to me through
a bottle of Francois Martenot Grand Pres Macon-
Villages Chardonnay, from the south of the district.
Its softness and rich, complex, alluring flavours are
simply outstanding and it’s available in Australia for just
$20 a bottle.
To me, how that exercise —including packaging and
transport to the other side of the world — is at all
possible simply demonstrates just how much really
good wine the French are producing.
The poor, old grapegrower must feel that it’s hardly
worth his toil, but I guess that’s how many Australian
vineyard owners feel, too.
TOP SHELF with John Rozentals
MADFISH 2017
Pinot Noir
FRANCOIS MARTENOT
Villages Chardonnay
CULLEN WINES 2016
Diana Madeline
QHA REVIEW | 60
This wine comes from
a few vineyards in the
isolated Great Southern
area of Western Australia.
The label is dominated by a
gorgeous turtle illustration
by Aboriginal artist
Maxine Fumagali. It’s an
unseasonally cool vintage
that shows in a pretty lean
wine — a wine with vibrant
flavours which go well with
Asian-style duck.
Francois Martenot
Grand Pres Macon-
Villages Chardonnay
A simply delightful dry
white with lovely fruit as
the hallmark. It has the
subtle flavours of ripe
melon and the depth
to demand food that is
relatively rich, such as
creamy-sauced pasta
with seafood.
This dry red rightly
claims a place as a
Cullen flagship. It’s a
great red wine, elegant
and dominated by the
flavours of dark fruits
and spices, overlaid
with beautiful oak. The
winemaker suggests
30 years of maturation
potential. I’d say at
least that.