In 1998, Michel & Louis Bronzo, the famous pair behind La Bastide Blanche in Bandol, purchased another famous old property in the area, Château des Baumelles.  The immediately went about re-vamping the vineyard, using organic farming techniques, and banning tractors.  They lowered the yeilds to a nearly unthinkable 30 hl/ha (this is lower than many Grand Crus in Burgundy).  The results have been oustanding, even if they have gone somewhat unnoticed in the press.  They release the wines late to allow extra barrel and bottle time, and to mellow out what can be hard edges from Provençal Mourvedre and Grenache.

The soil here is argilo-limestone underneath argilo-marl.   The vines average 28 years old and are bush-trained in the traditional Provençal fashion.  The wine is aged in 400-liter oak foudre (large barrels).  The wine is made up of 86% Mourvedre and 14% Grenache.   In 2004, 835 cases were made .

Bandol has always been a bit of a mystery to the rest of the world.  The wines are structured above all else (many of the lesser wines seem to be all tannin and acid and no fruit).  By all means, this is a powerful wine, but it has a lot of other things going on as well: pepper, smoke, blackberry liqueur, and more than a little bit of dusty dried herbs that are all wrapped around steely tannins and an intense acidity.

The structure here demands hearty, fatty meats, but the intensity also demands flavor.  So try this with Flank Steak, Herb Roasted Lamb, Olives, or Rabbit (actually, there’s this provencal dish that consists of rabbit stewed with lardon (bacon), olives, garlic and red wine that would be perfect).  Drink now – 2014 (some say to wait longer, but I have always felt that while bandol holds for a long time, it doesn’t often improve beyond 10 years of it’s birth).