Winemaker Notes
These exceptional conditions allow the Mourvèdre vines - 95% in that area- to reach an ideal maturity. The low yield makes it a rare wine.
This vigorous and powerful wine with its dense tannin is often a revelation to the lucky few who taste it. It is a reference.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Intense raspberry, red plum and kirschlike flavors are pure and powerfully structured, with loads of rich beef accents and a long finish of smoke, spice and hints of cream. Elegant despite the obvious power. Tempting now. Best from 2010 through 2016.
Full of ripe fruit, and robust, earthy goodness, Mourvèdre is actually of Spanish provenance, where it still goes by the name Monastrell or Mataro. It is better associated however, with the Red Blends of the Rhône, namely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mourvèdre shines on its own in Bandol and is popular both as a single varietal wine in blends in the New World regions of Australia, California and Washington. Somm Secret—While Mourvèdre has been in California for many years, it didn’t gain momentum until the 1980s when a group of California winemakers inspired by the wines of the Rhône Valley finally began to renew a focus on it.
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.