Bandol par Pieracci

For those of you — and I know that there are at least two of you — who have been waiting patiently for the answer to last Friday's installment of Name That Wine, it's demi-revelation time. For the full answer to the dual puzzle, you'll need to visit the comments stemming from that most recent quiz. For now, I'm prepared to tell you that one of the corks — the lower, the longer, the red stained (again, you'll have to revisit Friday's post) — was drawn from the very bottle of 2007 Bandol from Domaine Pieracci that's pictured at right.

Today's post, though, is really about a pair from Pieracci: their 2007 rouge and 2008 rosé. I'd never even heard of the estate until last year, when I picked up a couple of each of the above on a hope and a lark. I chose to open them each quite recently, inspired by a discussion with a friend about how much we both enjoy good Bandol but how deplorably infrequently I actually find occasion to drink said Bandols. So, situation remedied, at least in part....

Bandol Rosé, Domaine Pieracci (Jean-Pierre Pieracci) 2008
$27. 13.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: A Thomas Calder/Garagiste Selection, Free Run, Seattle, WA.
Though lacking the fine bones and indefinable subtlety of the benchmark Bandol rosé of Domaine Tempier, I nonetheless found plenty to enjoy in Pieracci's expression. Vigorous and masculine, with an assertively herbaceous nose and front palate rounded out by red summer berry fruits. Full flavored and not shy in the body department, yet food friendly and well balanced in its display of Mediterranean sunshine. The year-plus it's spent in bottle has done it no harm, presumably allowing its fruit richness to subside enough that those Mediterranean coast-driven aromatic traits — rosemary, red earth, sun-dried tomatoes — could display their full breadth. It held up well over the course of an entire week of varying stages of "openness," losing some of its aromatic complexity along the way but maintaining its freshness and appeal.

Bandol Rouge, Domaine Pieracci (Jean-Pierre Pieracci) 2007
$29. 14% alcohol. Cork. Importer: A Thomas Calder/Garagiste Selection, Free Run, Seattle, WA.
This, on the other hand, turned me off much more than on. Though not overtly modern in the sense of being doped up with toasty oak or sexy winemaking signatures, it was still not what I look and hope for in Bandol rouge. Nonexistent was that sense of sauvage, of animality, of fierce tannins and latent herbaceousness bridled, in the best cases, by earthy depth and ever-so-perilously maintained balance. Instead I found plump, super-ripe fruit. Tannin was there, but not with enough of a frame to carry its fat. Though labeled at 14%, I'd peg this at much closer to 15%, showing every bit the effect of the ripe '07 vintage character of so prevalent across Provence and the Southern Rhône. I'm certainly willing to reserve judgment until I have the chance to try Pieracci's red from a more restrained vintage, but this was definitely more in-your-face full-figured than I want or expect from Bandol. Ever optimistic, though, I'll hold my remaining bottle for a few years and hope for transformation.

Intro only...

NorCal 2009, Day Three: or Yes, I Went to Monterey for Rosh Hashanah

The irony doesn’t escape me. I’d gone from the suburbs of Philadelphia to, well, the suburbs of Monterey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. At least it seems ironic to me. Perhaps I’m just ignorant of the depth of Judaic culture in the Monterey bay area. In any event, it was pure coincidence that my trip happened to coincide with the beginning of the Jewish New Year. I’d gone for vacation, to relax, drink and eat of course, and, more importantly, to visit friends, some of whom just happen to take their high holidays pretty seriously.

While most of our day on Friday would be spent shopping and prepping for the evening’s feast, we did manage to keep the morning free to explore some of the natural beauty in the environs of Monterey. Images of the breathtaking vistas and windy roads of the California coastline tend to be conjured first when thinking of this part of the world, but there’s a different kind of beauty, perhaps even more pacific (yes, the pun’s intended), to the arid interior of the northern Central Coast. During a loping, two-hour hike that criss-crossed Fort Ord and adjoining acreage overseen by the US Bureau of Land Management, only a bobcat (far too quick for my camera yet very cool to spot), the occasional jay and scampering lizard, and a few other nature lovers shared the landscape with us.

Clockwise, from top left: California oaks more than dot the landscape, looking old and wise yet lacy and fragile, their beauty enhanced yet their health undermined by adornments of hanging moss. Recently abandoned cliff swallow nests, built under the eaves and ceiling of a decaying pagoda, part of an abandoned military picnic ground on Fort Ord. A playground of another type, built and showing the signs of regular use by the local BMX crowd. From flat and wide open to hilly and twisting, the trails here are great for both hiking and fast, relatively non-technical mountain biking.

Smart enough, at least I’d like to think so, not to shop hungry, we sated our hike-driven hunger with a lunch of fish tacos and shrimp burritos in downtown Monterey, followed by a stroll around the marina.


A classic local scene: California sea lions have made a permanent sun worshipping station of the breakwater along the Monterey pier. Less common were the swarms of jellyfish, not little guys, mind you, but big suckers, the size of basketballs and sporting waist-length dreadlocks of potential nastiness.

Lunching and tourism done for the day, we finally buckled down to the biz of preparing din-din. Dinner would start with a loaf of round challah (not raisin, all sold-out) served with honey, the shape of the loaf and sweetness of the accompaniment both symbolic of health and happiness in the new year to come. The rest of the meal would be less traditional, perhaps, but still very much in keeping with the spirit of the holiday and the observance of culinary customs.

My pals had gone off to visit Dashe Cellars after reading my interview with Michael Dashe a while back and had come back with a cache of 2008 L'Enfant Terrible, a bottle of which we happily dispatched while working in the kitchen.

As seriously as my pal Steve takes his holidays, his observance (happily) doesn’t extend to diving into the depths of Kosher wine, so we were able to put together a pretty decent little line-up to accompany the meal. In spite of my general distaste for grocery store wine shopping, I did find wine worth drinking at the local Whole Foods, including something I’d been meaning to try anyway, the Touraine Sauvignon from François Chidaine, one of the products of his recent expansion into the négociant end of the wine biz. Mind bending juice, no, but at $12 a bottle it’s a solid value and made for a nice pairing with roasted tomato and pecorino bruschetta. The star of the night, wine-wise that is, was undoubtedly the 2008 Bandol Rosé from Domaine de Terrebrune, one of the little gems I’d picked up at Kermit Lynch’s shop the day before. Firm and herbal, I’d love to check in on it a few years down the road but it was hard to say no to now. Spot on with Stevie’s orange-braised artichokes and the fillet of halibut I grilled up and topped with olive tapenade.

The evening's dead soldiers.

So, happy belated new year to those of you who observe. And stay tuned for more CA adventures to come.

Intro only...

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.

Intro only...