It’s not just me: Countless sommeliers would list Château de Pibarnon’s benchmark Bandol Rosé as a “desert island” wine. Bandol, in Provence, is universally recognized as the world’s first stop for truly “serious” rosé wines, and within Bandol, the Holy Trinity is Pibarnon, Tempier, and Terrebrune.
The feeding frenzy that follows the release of these wines every year is really something to behold, and as I’ve said many times before, the biggest mistake many loyalists make is drinking them all up that first Summer after the vintage. For me, Thanksgiving is often the ideal time to really appreciate such a genuinely complex and deeply flavorful rosé (not that I haven’t snuck in a few bottles before that), and the “second Spring” even more so. But it goes beyond that: I’ve enjoyed long-aged bottles of Pibarnon Rosé that not only remained lively and fresh but took on all the added dimensions and complexity you’d expect a “fine wine” to take. Driven by the lavender aromas and piquant fruit of Bandol’s signature Mourvèdre grape, today’s 2019 is an especially powerful edition of this time-tested classic. It truly is a cut above—a wine whose release we celebrate like a birthday or anniversary—and I can assure you there are many occasions throughout the Fall and Winter for this wine to shine. In fact, I don’t want you drinking this wine by the pool—but if you do, my hearty congratulations on living your very best life!
In general, I find rosé to be a very fraught category. On the one hand, I want bright refreshment, and I don’t want to pay too much for it. This, I think, is how most people feel, making wines like Pibarnon’s the outliers: If people aren’t willing to take rosé seriously, they’re not going to pay $39 for it. But for every cutesy rosé “brand” out there, there are also producers who stress that their rosé is designed from the outset to be a rosé—as opposed to being a pink by-product of red wine production. In Bandol especially, the rosés are the top wines, more sought-after than either the whites or reds (as good as they both are). The rosés offer the most evocative transport to the herb-slathered Mediterranean paradise that is Provence, and when you think of them in that context, they are some of the greatest wine values around.
Château de Pibarnon sits at the highest point in the Bandol appellation, which I remember vividly from my visit there back in 2012. The approach to the estate is a narrow dirt road, and if another car came from the opposite direction, one of us had to back up and turn off without backing into a ditch. Arriving at the property felt like settling onto a perch—one with a panoramic view of vines planted on century-old terraces made of stone. Jagged, coastal mountains spiked with limestone in one direction, the Mediterranean in the other…not a bad setup, and of course the wines lived up to their surroundings. Sourced from vineyards arrayed in a natural, southeast-facing amphitheater, with soils of pebbly limestone over blue clay, the entire Pibarnon lineup—red, white, and rosé—reliably captures the essence of both the sea and the soil.
Bandol’s combination of soil composition and Mediterranean sun has proved ideal for the late-ripening Mourvèdre grape, the signature red of the appellation. And, as Bandol’s Mourvèdre-driven reds are widely regarded as Provence’s best—Pibarnon’s is a spicy, perfumed style capable of long, graceful aging—it stands to reason that the rosés from the grape would be similarly distinguished. Pibarnon’s 2019 is comprised of 65% Mourvèdre and 35% Cinsault from old vines (30-50 years) grown at about 300 meters’ elevation, which subjects the grapes to wider diurnal temperature swings and helps maintain freshness. The Cinsault grapes for the rosé are pressed immediately after harvesting, but the Mourvèdre is crushed and put into a tank so that only the “free run” juice—the juice that flows from the grapes without any pressing—is drawn off. The Cinsault/Mourvèdre are fermented separately on indigenous yeasts, then later blended for 6 months aging in stainless steel before bottling.
The 2019 Pibarnon Rosé is full of both power and nerve, shining a classic salmon-pink in the glass with light pink and magenta highlights. The aromas are textbook Provence, with notes of wild strawberry, red currant, pink grapefruit, hibiscus tea, salty peach, lilac and lavender, dried herbs, and faint accents of pink peppercorn and crushed earth. The palate impression is full and deep, but without any of the extra residual sugar or flabbiness that sinks a lot of southern French rosés. There’s intense flavor as well as laser focus. Get some good prosciutto, jamón, or American country ham to enjoy with it, or make some salmon croquettes. Save some for your Thanksgiving dinner, too, as I always do (it really sings with those flavors). Serve it at 50 degrees in large all-purpose stems and you’ve got perhaps the ultimate “chameleon” wine on earth for your dinner table. This is an all-time great! Enjoy!
