Reserve St. Martin is a Languedoc producer, and this is Chardonnay grown in the warm, windy south of France, where the grape ripens further than it does in Burgundy and keeps a flinty edge beside the fruit. The 2021 vintage is dry, medium in body, with medium acidity and low tannin.
- Chardonnay, 100%, from the Languedoc-Roussillon.
- 2021, a cool and steady year in the south.
- 13% ABV, dry, medium body.
- Green apple, citrus, white peach, flint, butter.
- 750ml bottle.
How it is made
Languedoc-Roussillon runs along the Mediterranean from the Rhône to the Spanish border, and it is France's largest wine region by area. The wind matters here: the Tramontane blows cool and dry off the mountains, keeping the vines healthy and the fruit from getting heavy. Chardonnay planted in that heat, picked early enough, holds on to its acidity.
How it tastes
Green apple and citrus first, then white peach, with a flinty note underneath that comes from the grape itself rather than from oak. There is a soft butteriness on the finish, the kind that comes from malolactic fermentation rather than from new barrels. Medium weight, dry, low in tannin, and clean right to the end.
Good to know
Languedoc was a bulk wine region for most of the twentieth century, shipping tankers north to be blended into other people's bottles. That changed in the 1980s, when growers started planting by site and variety instead of by volume. Chardonnay was one of the grapes that proved the south could do more than Carignan and Grenache.
