Chateau Canadel Rouge 2017
-
Spirits
Wine &
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Deep ruby color, with licorice, leather, and spice notes which usher in a luscious, dark-fruited midplate filled with intense, hearty structure.
Blend: 70% Mourvèdre, 22% Cinsault, 5% Grenache, 3% Syrah
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
Canadel sits on an unusual vein of land in Bandol, where shifting tectonic plates pushed the Triassic layer to the surface. Laure Benoist and her husband, Vianney, tend 37 acres of vines rooted in this landscape of ancient limestone and clay, using biodynamic principles. Their 2017 rosé is meatier than you might expect from such a delicately copper-colored rosé, with a ferrous minerality driving its tangy cherry flavors. It lasts with a foresty coolness, a rosé for wild mushrooms or grilled meat.
Other Vintages
2018-
Spirits
Wine &
-
Parker
Robert
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.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
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.