Winemaker Notes
Château Canadel is a small, family-owned estate with 15ha of prime vineyards on a unique terroir, located in the hamlet of Le Plan du Castellet, within the famed terraces of Bandol. The property consists of a small village of historic houses, built around a chapel and ancient water canals, dating back to the 13th century. These canals gave the estate its name, which evolved over time: Canal d’eau became Canadeau, and finally Canadel.
Château Canadel’s unique vineyards are planted on a geological anomaly with an inversion of soil layers from the birth of the Alps, known as the Renversement du Beausset. This resulted in the Triassic layer (200 million years old) being flipped on top of the Cretaceous layer (65 million years old) due to the subduction of a tectonic plate which has surfaced the oldest rock outcroppings in the whole of the appellation. To our knowledge, this unusual soil for the area is found only in a handful of other wines (Pibarnon, Terrebrune, and in Domaine Tempier’s La Migoua vineyard) but almost nowhere else in the appellation. The limestone and clay soils are particularly good for water retention in an otherwise arid region. The vineyards are planted on south-facing restanques (terraces), directly facing the Massif du Gros Cerveau, which blocks rain clouds and provides an ideal climate for full ripening of the indigenous Mourvèdre grape.
Since 2009, the winery has been run by their daughter Laure Benoist, agricultural engineer, and her husband Vianney Benoist, agronomist and enologist. Having spent 4 years making wine with the famed Domaine Tempier team, Vianney gained valuable experience in soulful, broad-spectrum, cinematic red wines befitting of the Bandol appellation. Laure and Vianney practice organic viticulture and use biodynamic principles in their vineyard work, with all work being done by hand on the terraces. All movement in the winery is by gravity flow and wines are bottled unfiltered. Finally, after 5 years of diligent work in their vineyards, the first vintage was made in 2014 and the resulting wines already show incredible depth and terroir expression.
With their unique soil and position within Bandol in Le Plan du Castellet, Laure and Vianney are focused on making long-lived reds from the local Mourvèdre as well as small amounts of elegantly structured Bandol rosé and blanc. The young, hard-working spirit behind this estate is poised to claim a place among the greats of Bandol.
Provence’s leader in concentrated and age-worthy red wines, Bandol is home to the dense, deep and earthy Mourvèdre grape. Like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Bandol produces characterful reds that, while approachable in their youth, are typically designed for the cellar.
Given its coastal, Provencal situation, Bandol also naturally produces an assortment of charming, aromatic rosés made of Mourvèdre, Grenache and Cinsault.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.