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Bastide de la Ciselette, Bandol Rosé

Provence, France 2018 (750mL)
$30.00
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Bastide de la Ciselette, Bandol Rosé

The runaway popularity of rosé wine is a great thing for the wine industry. A lot of people (especially younger people) are becoming wine drinkers because of rosé, but as a cranky, aging sommelier, I’ve got one problem with that: There’s so much sweet, innocuous, bulk-scale “rosé” out there I worry that the category is becoming cocktail-ized—not exactly good news for artisanal wines like today’s Bandol Rosé from Bastide de la Ciselette. 
Even casual wine drinkers recognize Bandol as the rosé mothership, and yet, for all the power of Bandol as a “brand,” there are only around 60 wine producers in the entire appellation. These days, rosés from icons like Domaine Tempier have achieved “allocated” status (with prices to match), so we’re thankful for Bastide de la Ciselette and its deep, expressive, textbook expression of Bandol and its Mourvèdre grape (the driving force of the best Bandol rosés). In a relatively short period of time, Bastide de la Ciselette owner Robert de Salvo has carved out a prominent place for his wines in this close-knit region. This isn’t rosé as brand, or “category”; this is genuine wine of place, a culinary chameleon, and every bit as complex as the red wine it might otherwise have become. It’s not a cocktail—it’s rosé for true wine lovers.

By Bandol standards, Bastide de la Ciselette is a newcomer on the scene, although de Salvo’s family have been vignerons in the region for many years. Previously, they sold their grapes to the local cooperative before de Salvo created his label and became the 57th estate to be registered under the AOC (controlled appellation) in 2010. The Bastide de la Ciselette estate includes 15 hectares of vineyards just outside Le Castellet, facing the Mediterranean to the immediate south/southwest. De Salvo, who counts Domaines Ott as a neighbor, describes his farming approach as lutte raisonnée (“reasoned fight”), but he’s employing both organic and biodynamic methods on his picturesque property, where he also produces olive oil. With the help of winemaker Romain Bournaud, who most recently worked at Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte in Bordeaux, de Salvo has pushed his wines to Bandol’s upper echelon in what seems like record time.

Old vines certainly help in that regard, and the Mourvèdre (72%) and Grenache (28%) used in this 2018 comes from vineyards with an average age of 40 years. Rooted in the stony limestone/clay mixture classic to the region and facing the sea, amphitheater-style, the vineyards of Bandol are really the spiritual home of Mourvèdre, which reaches its aromatic apex here: hints of lavender, purple fruit, wild herbs, and olives distinguish this variety in both its red and rosé forms, and there’s always a slightly sauvage quality to Bandol rosé that’s on full display in today’s wine—and there may be no more perfect regional food/wine pairing anywhere in the world than this wine and a classic Provençal fish stew. When I look at this wine’s label, in fact, I start fantasizing about exactly that!

In the glass, this 2018 is textbook Bandol through and through, shining a pale salmon-pink with orange and copper reflections. The aromas are a wild, herb-infused tangle of wild strawberry, red currant, pink grapefruit, hibiscus tea, lilac and lavender, sage, coriander, and dusty red earth. It is medium to medium-plus in body—substantial and persistent but without a hint of the sweetness so prevalent throughout the industrial-rosé universe (believe me, we’re tasting a lot of rosés at SommSelect right now, which means kissing a lot of frogs to find standouts like this one). Pull the cork and serve this straight away now and over the next few years (we often find the best Bandol rosé’s to be at their best on their “second spring”) at 45 degrees in all-purpose white wine stems. As for what to cook, well, you know what to do. Enjoy!
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Country
France
Region
Provence
Sub-Region
FranceBandol
Soil
Argilo-Calcaire (Clay-Limestone)
Farming
Lutte Raisonnée
Blend
Mourvèdre 72%, Grenache 28%
Alcohol
13.5
TEMP.
45-50
Glassware
All-Purpose Whites / Reds
Drinking
Now-2021
Decanting
Optional
Pairing
Bouillabaisse

France

Bourgogne

Beaujolais

Enjoying the greatest wines of Beaujolais starts, as it usually does, with the lay of the land. In Beaujolais, 10 localities have been given their own AOC (Appellation of Controlled Origin) designation. They are: Saint Amour; Juliénas; Chénas; Moulin-à Vent; Fleurie; Chiroubles; Morgon; Régnié; Côte de Brouilly; and Brouilly.

Southwestern France

Bordeaux

Bordeaux surrounds two rivers, the Dordogne and Garonne, which intersect north of the city of Bordeaux to form the Gironde Estuary, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The region is at the 45th parallel (California’s Napa Valley is at the38th), with a mild, Atlantic-influenced climate enabling the maturation of late-ripening varieties.

Central France

Loire Valley

The Loire is France’s longest river (634 miles), originating in the southerly Cévennes Mountains, flowing north towards Paris, then curving westward and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantes. The Loire and its tributaries cover a huge swath of central France, with most of the wine appellations on an east-west stretch at47 degrees north (the same latitude as Burgundy).

Northeastern France

Alsace

Alsace, in Northeastern France, is one of the most geologically diverse wine regions in the world, with vineyards running from the foothills of theVosges Mountains down to the Rhine River Valley below.

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