Wine & Spirits Magazine Highlights Domaine Melody as a “Winery to Watch”

Each year, Wine & Spirits Magazine asks their global wine critics to name the rising stars around the winemaking world that they’ve discovered during their previous twelve months of traveling and tasting. This year’s roster includes a diverse collection of vintners from Czech Republic, Lebanon, South Africa, Australia and beyond. Domaine Melody was the only winery in France to be honored with this prestigious “Winery to Watch” award in 2021. 

“After graduating from the Lycée Viticole d’Orange, Marlène Durand and Marc Romak set out to make their own wine in Crozes-Hermitage,” writes critic Tara Q. Thomas. “They began experimenting in 2009, with fruit Durand’s family had been growing in Larnage and selling to the co-op; they also partnered with a family friend, Denis Larivière, who provided grapes from his parcels in Mercurol. Now they own nearly 50 acres of vines, split between the clay-limestone of Les Terrasses des Chassis and the kaolin clay of Larnage. Their old-vine fruit allows for concentrated, intense wines like Premier Regard, but it’s the young-vine cuvée, Friandise, that best shows their skills: In 2019, it’s lush and lifted, with scents of flowers and forest on a cool, sunny day, and it remains that way for days after opening.”