Chateau Ste Anne Bandol Rouge 2010 ‘Cellar Release’

“Or Ste Anne, as it says on the label. Mourvèdre from Bandol (and elsewhere) can often come over as being bretty and overtly meaty, and sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. All I like to do, is form an opinion of what’s in the glass, and how it tastes, and then work out whether I like it. This is a bit of a natty producer, using minimal SO2 at bottling. Vines are over 45 years old.

Well there’s no doubt it’s from Bandol. It’s all meat, rolled in earth, and coated with perfumed scrub herbs. It has perfume and wildness, and speaks of place very clearly. Blackcurrant and black olives, wide feeling silty tannin, still carries some freshness and energy, but has a lovely sense of maturing decay, leather and old tobacco and the like. Finish is meaty and slightly medicinal, but long. Like this, but it’s what you might call an ‘aficionados wine’.” – 93 Points, Gary Walsh, The Wine Front.

Bandol Rouge 2017