Description
Château Guilhem Tournier, Bandol Rosé “La Malissonne”
Can you feel it? Maybe not quite yet, but we quietly crossed over to Spring a few days ago and our collective emergence from the throes of a pandemic feels imminent. I, for one, am feeling optimistic, ready to get outside and gather with friends, and drink some rosé. As I’ve noted many times before, this is precisely the time of year when importers begin dumping their newest-release rosés into our thirsty market, but as I’ve also noted many times before, the “freshest” rosé isn’t always the “best.” Today’s wine from wünderkind Guilhem Tournier is a reminder that rosé wines can, and do, improve with time, layering in added complexity without sacrificing refreshment.
With a proper Bandol rosé, like this one, all the dogma about drinking rosé as young as possible goes out the window: I’m loving where this wine is right now, and as I write about it I’m craving another bottle, preferably al fresco, as soon as possible. Bandol, of course, is arguably the world’s most prestigious rosé appellation and Tournier, while relatively young, has elite ambitions for his wines. He looks to the region’s iconic giants—Domaine Tempier, Château de Pibarnon, Terrebrune—for inspiration, using the Mourvèdre grape as the wine’s backbone and delivering depth and fragrance to rival the “Big Three.” There’s mineral savor, tangy fruit, aromatic nuance, and, best of all, an accessible price to recommend this one. Is it time to add another face to rosé’s Mount Rushmore? Could be…
The clay and limestone soils of Bandol, combined with its Mediterranean climate, has proved magical for the Mourvèdre variety, the backbone of the region’s most acclaimed reds and rosés. Farming about six hectares of terraced vines within eyeshot of the sea, Tournier incorporates considerably more Mourvèdre (90%) into his rosé than even the big-name estates mentioned above. Although many Provençal producers re-planted to higher-yielding varieties post-phylloxera, Tournier has been a Mourvèdre specialist since his first vintage in 2005. His vineyards are Certified Organic, with tilling done by horse and only natural fertilizers employed. This wine is a “direct-to-press” rosé, meaning grapes were harvested specifically for rosé production (as opposed to the wine being “bled off” from a red-wine fermentation).
The 2018 “Cuvée la Malissonne” clearly has the structure of its more-famous contemporaries, and has had the chance to broaden into a perfumed, complex wine. In the glass, it’s a classic Bandol salmon-pink with hints of copper at the rim, with aromas of pink lady apple, wild strawberry, cranberry, blood orange peel, dried lavender, Provençal herbs, and crushed stones. This is a crash course in what tasters mean when they mention garrigue, the fragrant scrub-brush that grows alongside the vines in Provence and lends its personality to the wines. There’s good depth on the mid-palate, enough, in fact, that I could see drinking it with something as meaty as a Provence-style rack of lamb. Its sweet spot, at this time of year, would be freshly caught Pacific salmon with some spring vegetables; as a warm-up, try it with the tangy, tomato-y, traditional recipe attached. There will be plenty of opportunities to plug it into the mix in the coming months. Enjoy!
