We’ve spent countless hours and thousands of words endorsing the reds and rosés of Bandol, but if we were on trial for underrepresenting Bandol Blanc, we’d be guilty as charged. Despite our infrequent offerings—only two in seven years—trust me when I say you owe it to yourself to check out this rare and wildly misunderstood category.
Right before passing my Master Sommelier exam, I had the great fortune of experiencing Bandol Blanc straight from the source: I visited cellars sprinkled along the Mediterranean and drank copious amounts of small-production, Clairette-driven whites with seafood up and down the Quai Charles de Gaulle. Today’s 2020 from Domaine Le Galantin took me right back to this southern French paradise. It’s a singular wine that not only possesses a powerful saline imprint but also has the succulent complexity and crystalline refreshment to become your new obsession. It’ll appeal to New World wine lovers because of its lush texture and Old World fans because of its lasting energy and tension. In short, it’s a wine for everyone, that hardly anyone knows about!
You wouldn’t be at fault for now knowing about Bandol Blanc, which makes up maybe five percent of all the wines produced in the Bandol appellation. The few vintners crafting these beautifully unique whites leverage old-vine Clairette which delivers a healthy dollop of scrub-brushy garrigue aromas, typically balanced by Ugni Blanc and Rolle aka Vermentino.
I recall visiting a host of classic producers like Domaine Tempier, Domaine de Terrebrune, and Pibarnon. And I was constantly struck by the serenity of their higher-elevation vineyard sites on impressively terraced hills above Bandol, with beautiful turquoise waters reflecting an intense amount of sunlight. On Le Plan du Castellet—the plateau above the village of Bandol—you see a lot of farms and a diverse landscape where the sea is visible from some, not all locations, and you’re never more than a few miles from the Mediterranean. With constant sunshine and constant wind, grapes achieve even ripening while retaining vivid acidity, and the proximity to the ocean imbues the local blancs with a real saline edge.
Domaine le Galantin encompasses some 30 hectares of organically farmed terraced vineyards surrounded by cypress and pine trees in Le Plan du Castellet (a mere 1.5 hectares is dedicated to white varieties). The winery itself is a mile east of Pibarnon, just a five-minute drive south of Domaine Tempier, and two miles from the coastline. Achille and Lillian Pascal have owned the land and made wine there for over 30 years. Today, their children Celine and Jerome oversee production, although both Achille and Lillian are still very active in the operation of the winery—on the hottest days, Achille, an octogenarian, will run along with all the workers to pick up baskets at the end of rows and carry them along the steep slopes to the family tractor!
In the cellar, his daughter Celine has brought a serious focus to the winemaking, and the wines today possess a great clarity of aromas and flavors that truly call to mind the family’s terraced hillside plantings, referred to locally as restanques, where 40+-year-old vines rooted in clay and limestone soils receive an incredible amount of sunshine. Le Galantin’s 2020 Bandol Blanc is a blend of 60% Clairette, 35% Ugni Blanc and 5% Vermentino that fermented separately, without malolactic, in stainless steel tanks. The wines rested on their fine lees until blending and bottling in the Spring of this year. A mere 375 cases were produced.
Le Galantin’s 2020 Bandol Blanc is a perfect white wine for Fall: lifted, aromatically pure, and crisp but with the stuffing and creamy layers to stand up to a hearty pairing. In an all-purpose stem around 45-50 degrees, the nose greets you with high-toned aromas of white peach and sliced white pear, lees, damp wild herbs, citrus blossoms, bergamot peel, white flowers, and sea spray. The palate is medium-bodied, ripe, and dangerously refreshing—so much so, you’ll want to have a second bottle already chilled down. If you don’t deplete your stash by Autumn’s end, fear not: Your remainders will be drinking beautifully come next Spring and Summer. Cheers!
