Opened this for the summer solstice. Don’t see lots of notes for aged Bandol here, but given how great this wine was, figured it would be worth posting my notes. Here they are.
Noah
Perfect bottle with high fill and an amazing springy cork barely stained. Dark garnet just this side of transparent with a bit of bricking.
This may be 36 years old, but this is a big brooding wine. Nose is full of salted licorice, blackberries, garrigue, black oil packed olives, dark soil, and preserved cherries.
The body is lighter than I expected from the nose and is in keeping with a wine pushing 40- let’s call it medium. Tannins have surely softened; I’m sure this was a tannin monster back in the day, but they are surprisingly gentle. Despite the medium body and light tannins, the flavor profile is very serious, ferocious even. Lots of dark licorice, burnt ends, black olives, black peppercorns, oiled leather. There’s a metallic flavor that tastes a bit bloody, a bit like chewing on dirty pennies. Those flavors may sound unpleasant, but they work here with this dark profile. There is some blackberry and cherry flavors buried in there, but it’s an afterthought. The complexity is high and the finish goes on and on.
Interesting to have a wine with such intensity of dark flavors in a medium bodied light tannin wine. I imagine this might have been kind of hard to drink in its youth, but age has tamed this beast. (Even so, it’s still a beast.)
Paired with Thomas Keller-ish confit biyaldi (lots of work to do on presentation!), bread baked in my new Gozney pizza oven, and top quality olive oil for dipping.
Love to see it. I just opened a bottle of 1961 Pradeaux Bandol that was spectacular. These are extremely age worthy and insanely underrated wines. The VV and Longe Garde bottlings are quite special. But the normal cuvee is amazing as well.
Nice work. I bought a few bottles of 2005 Pibarnon last year. Drank the first and it was well past beastly stage, delicious and sufficiently resolved for my palate, but no rush on the next bottles.
I don’t drink a ton of Bandol but I believe Pibarnon is not quite as intense as your bottling?
I bought and drank a decent amount of the ‘89 and ‘90 VV versions. Super tannic and tight for many, many years. But with air after 20 yrs they really became quite good and interesting. Still remained powerful, full bodied, but evolution did take place.
My experience as well. They are drinkable with a lot of air but very tannic wines. I have 2 bottles of the 90 left. I’ll try one this week, but, honestly, I don’t expect they will have changed much.
In 2009, I visited Bandol and went to both Pradeaux and Pibarnon. Both made excellent wines but stylistically they were very different. Pibarnon is made in a larger winery and the wines are rich and lush. Pradeaux is made at a small family estate and the wines are more nuanced. Have not had Pibarnon with that much age, but my guess is that they will age well. While I have not had Pradeaux from as old vintages as the ones above, I have had them with more age than I have had Pibarnon, and they age quite well.
They are both interesting properties and you should try some of each.
Lovely to read Noah, I used to buy the wines years ago but they no longer come into my country. Still have a magnum of the 1995 left and reading your notes makes me salivate at the thought. I made a bit of a pilgrimage to the estate back in 2023, such a low key cellar door, and the initially quite quiet chap there warmed to my friends and I once we chatted a little. They had sold out of their current vintage of the Bandol but had a second wine. They did have their Bandol Rosé though which was superb.
