Domaine Marie Bérénice (Le Castellet, Bandol, PROVENCE)
The Bandol wines from Damien Roux offer an expedition— a trip back in time— to Provence as captured in the black and white films of Marcel Pagnol. His farm is named Domaine Marie Bérénice, after his daughter, located on the outskirts of Le Castellet and on the other side of the walled Medieval town from our friends at the Domaine Tempier.
After ten years of making an annual pilgrimage to Bandol, our 2019 trip to the region finished with a drive to Solliès-Toucas, to the house where famed food writer Richard Olney spent the latter half of his life, perched on a steep hill that has burned out the clutch in many a rent-a-car. His house has been preserved by his family exactly as he kept it: typewriter, ashtrays, stone hearth lined with copper pots, various mortars and pestles, and the kitchen pillar that Richard plastered with wine labels from ‘dead soldiers’ of numerous wine world legends, all left untouched.
Daniel Ravier, the winemaker at Domaine Tempier since 1999, joined us for dinner at Richard’s house that night with the ultimate Bandol ‘unicorn,’ a 1987 “La Louffe.” La Louffe being the choicest parcel within “La Migoua” (similar to how “Cabassaou” is the choicest part of their “La Tourtine”) and was bottled as a single-vineyard only twice in the almost 200-year-old history of the Domaine. The bottle was pristine, having been kept in the icy cellars at Tempier since production, and during our dinner of Olney Provençal classics, it gradually echoed the saline umami character that one craves from Bandol. It was an unforgettable evening, made even more poignant by a bottle of perfectly aged red Bandol.
On returning home stateside I was soon tipped off about a new, up-and-coming producer in the region, of which only a few cases got shipped to New York, Domaine Marie Bérénice. This Bandol Rouge had the aromas of Mourvèdre that I found as thrilling as anything in Provence. And as exciting as older, cellared examples of Bandol can be (such as the rare La Louffe at Olney’s house) there was something so captivating and primal about drinking this Bandol red on release, in its youth.
Damien Roux comes from a long line of grape growers in Bandol, but historically his family sold their fruit to other wineries. Damien also made wine for another winery in the area, which got sold to Domaine Ott, so Damien used this opportunity to begin making his own wines from his family’s old vines. A humble farm of 14 hectares on clay and limestone terraces, the farming here is certified organic, and the work is done by hand.
In the cellar, Damien vinifies with native, wild yeasts, uses a long maceration, and then ages his red Bandol in large foudres for eighteen months before bottling without any fining or filtration. It is everything you want in great, old-style Bandol, and with a juicy refinement that makes them easily gulpable now.
2021 Bandol Rosé (pdf tech sheet)
2021 Bandol Blanc (pdf tech sheet)
2020 Bandol Rouge (pdf tech sheet)