2012 Chateau Martinat Cotes de Bourg 750 ml

Obsession and Black-Rimmed Glasses at Château Martinat

When Stéphane and Lucie Donze rolled the dice on Château Martinat, abandoning promising careers in Paris for a dilapidated farmhouse, a cellar in ruins, and almost 25 acres of pristine limestone, the two brightest stars of the Côtes de Bourg told us that they had no idea what they were in for.

Lucie Donze is a tall blond with a playful, Nordic smile. As we sat at the lunch table at Martinat, she described the fateful night of October 1991 that would change the couple’s lives. “Both of us had worked extremely hard, and while we had no savings, we were living the life in Paris. We had a nice, small apartment near the Seine. Our jobs were challenging. From the outside, everything was perfect. But on the inside, Stéphane was boiling.”

That evening, Stéphane, then a corporate executive with a large shipping firm, returned home at 8 p.m. Lucie had prepared dinner. Half of the bottle of last night’s Sancerre was open on the table. Just one problem. Her husband wasn’t hungry. “He told me he felt like he was in a tunnel running as fast as he could. But the faster he ran, the further the light was pushed into the distance. It was clear he’d had enough of the race. I had a choice. Either I could follow or it was my turn to run.” Lucie looked across the table at Stéphane, now blushing behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. Then she laughed. “I’ve never much cared for running!”

Over the next three years, the couple continued to work in Paris, each continuing to rise in their respective organizations. But each weekend, they’d take off, studying vineyard opportunities in Languedoc, the southern Rhône, the Loire, and Bordeaux.

“We had no money,” Stéphane conceded. “So we narrowed our search to appellations where bankers were lending against the value of the land. In the end, it took three years. I never had any intention of moving to the Right Bank of Bordeaux, but the moment I saw the exposition and the limestone soils of Martinat, I was done.”

There are several reasons why Donze has leapfrogged over much of Lalande-de-Pomerol and Saint-Émilion on his way to Right Bank stardom. The first is the maticulous sorting in the vines and then again on the sorting table. The second is the labor-intensive practice of carrying out malolactic fermentation in barrel, offering more silken mouthfeel and supple backbone on release. But last, and most of all, the Michelin-starred ascent of Château Martinat seems to be most attributable to the still-obsessive commitment of the mind behind those broad-rimmed black glasses — so unimaginably rewarded in the magical summer of 2012.

In the Wine Advocate vintage report entitled “The Bottled 2012 Bordeaux 1998, 2001, 2006 - Déjà Vu?” Robert Parker extolled the virtues of the top châteaux of the Right Bank, writing: “Low yields and a rather surprising ripeness (alcohol levels run from 13.5%-15% across the board) was not far off the record level of alcohol achieved in the two great vintages of 2009 and 2010.” Such was the case at Château Martinat, where Stéphane Donze crafted the most lavish wine of his young winemaking career.

The 2012 Château Martinat is a knockout. Dark ruby/purple in color, with sweet, floral aromas of blueberry and licorice, braced with new-wood cedar. Rich, dense, and juicy on the attack, flashy and beautifully polished, filled with black-fruit preserves, sweet spice, and violets. The finish testifies to Donze’s meticulous barrel-fermented protocol — soft, round, and supple, still buttressed with sufficient tannic backbone to argue for a 10-year slumber in a cool cellar.

$30 on release. Just $16.50 today for one of the most compelling Right Bank bargains of the year. Shipping included on 6.