Bandol Longue Garde

If you Google “longue garde,” you’ll come up with a long list of wines from Bandol that use the term as a cuvée name. If you translate it with your basic French pocket dictionary, you won’t come up with much of a surprise; it means “long guard.” Think of it, though, in the same context as you might “avant garde” – ground breaking, before its time – and you’ll have a better sense of what longue garde means in the wine lexicon of Bandol. Quite simply, it suggests a wine shat should be kept. It’s indicative of the time it can take to tame the structure of traditionally produced Bandol, to mellow the inherently sauvage character of Bandol’s native vine, Mourvèdre.

Bandol “Longue Garde,” Domaine Lafran-Veyrolles 1998
~$20 on release. 13% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA.
Domaine Lafran-Veyrolles can be counted among the old guard in Bandol. An original member of the Syndicat des Anciens Vins de Bandol, an organization created in 1939 with the goal of raising the quality and cementing the reputation of Bandol, the estate still produces wines in what can be considered the traditional fashion. Their cuvée “Longue Garde” is very nearly pure Mourvèdre, about 95%, blended with only a small percentage of Grenache Noir. Following fermentation in temperature controlled tanks, it spends just shy of two years aging in old oak foudres.

A quick look at Lafran-Veyrolles’ website tells us they recommend keeping their “Longue Garde” (which they now call “Cuvée Spéciale”) for eight to twelve years.


I can still remember tasting the ‘98 when it first hit American shores somewhere around 2002. Tighter than a drum... it was all hard edges, lean and taut, tasting of not much more than dried leather and wild herbs. Friendly it was not. Potential, though, it did seem to have.

Six or seven years on, at a touch over ten years from the vintage, it’s now right in the sweet spot of the drinking window suggested by Lafran-Veyrolles. As is often the case with such recommendations though, the date range seems to have been low-balled. Yes, it’s drinking in a pretty sweet spot but it will easily go another 8-12 years and should continue to develop further interest along the way.

For now, it’s still plenty youthful but more open knit than when I last tasted it, with suppler tannins and a solid spine of acidity driving home dark, sinewy, spicy fruit. The nose is loaded with aromas of ink, garrigue, wild black fruit and a touch of blood and iron. Drinking and smelling it, I can somehow close my eyes and picture a horse running through the dry, windswept Provençal outback. Just about perfect for a pot of beef daube or braised lamb shanks, and a good thing to have kept for the long guard.