Powerful and firm, built on Mourvèdre's tannin; needs years
Ageing
10–20 years and more
Serving
16–18 °C, decant when young
On the sun-baked terraces above the Mediterranean near Toulon, Mourvèdre finds the one place in France it fully ripens, and gives Bandol — the country's great Mourvèdre red. Dark, tannic and structured, scented with blackberry, leather and wild garrigue herbs, it is a wine that demands patience and rewards it with decades of slow, savoury development.
The steep restanque terraces must be worked by hand, and the appellation's insistence on Mourvèdre — a grape too late-ripening for almost anywhere else — gives Bandol a character found nowhere else in Provence. Its rosé is famous too, but the brooding red is the region's true monument.