We’ve offered the wines of Corinna Faravel and her Domaine Martenelle enough times over the years, and likely sold dozens if not hundreds of cases, that I don’t think it’s necessary to wax poetic or throw around a lot of flowery language. But, in case you’re new to this extraordinary value here’s the rub: Corinna’s Ventoux Rouge has all the spice, power, elegance, complexity, and length of not just average but really, really good Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And it still (after many years) costs less than $30. This is a house wine for many of us, and the kind of bottle that makes me smile when I see it on an otherwise “fancy” wine list. Stock up, it’s the pro move.
If you take a quick 30-minute jaunt slightly northeast of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, you’ll enter the outskirts of Lafare, located in the northern section of Beaumes-de-Venise (the southern half is known for its naturally sweet, fortified Muscats). This tucked-away commune is home to Domaine Martinelle, a winery founded and run by a one-woman show, Corinna Faravel, who is the wife of Thierry Faravel, co-owner of acclaimed Domaine Bouïssière in Gigondas. Corinna embodies what this blossoming region needs: she’s impassioned, energetic, wise beyond her years, and shows a delicate, hands-off approach so as to let the terroir sing and the wine create itself. She acquired her first plot in 2001, bottled her first vintage solo in 2004, and built a cellar in Lafare in 2009—which made her a fully-functioning domaine.
Ventoux is cooler than most Southern Rhône appellations. It is a blended mountain and Mediterranean climate that is protected from the harsh elements of Mont Ventoux by the sweeping Dentelles de Montmirail, an outcrop of the larger Alps. Corinna’s first purchase of slow-ripening, low-yielding vines came from these foothills, and the majority of grapes in today’s 2017 Ventoux bottling are atop a broad-shouldered slope within them. The soils here are a mixture of clay and iron-rich limestone with ancient volcanic footprints, although her Syrah plantings are at the base of the hill, where soils are poorer and looser.
The blend is predominantly Grenache, with healthy portions of Syrah and Mourvèdre, a true GSM as we say in California. Her vines range from 15-50 years of age and altitudes can reach nearly 1,000 feet (Châteauneuf-du-Pape is about a third of that). She’s been an organic practitioner since the birth of Martinelle and uses an old-fashioned horse and plow in the vineyards. Grapes are hand-harvested and shuttled into cement vats via gravity, where only indigenous yeasts are used. The wine also ages underground in concrete vats and is bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Martinelle’s 2022 Ventoux Rouge shines with a dark crimson-purple core with brilliant magenta hues on the rim and releases classic Southern Rhône descriptors: ripe black cherry, currant, wild strawberry, dried garrigue, black pepper, raspberry, crushed stone, candied violets, turned earth, and a touch of olive. In the glass, it harnesses the freshness and balance you find in great red Burgundy while exploding with dense, high-toned Châteauneuf-du-Pape notes. This wine consistently delivers everything I love from the South of France: It's soft, elegant, perfumed, full of rich flavor, and extremely easy to drink. While it can certainly age over the next five years, I say drink this now with no shame! Just decant briefly for 15-30 minutes and make sure your drinking partners don’t cheat you out of an extra glass. Cheers!
