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When was the last time you drank Bandol, or Cassis Blanc… or Iroulegy for that matter? If you’re like me, until a few months ago when I received an invitation to lunch with Reynald Delille of Domaine de Terrebrune in Bandol, it may have been quite awhile, too long, perhaps. As I enjoyed Delille’s wines, the young, floral Bandol Rouge from the beautiful 2006 vintage as well as older vintages going back several decades, I wondered why Bandol wasn’t more of a staple in my home.

Here at CSW, we tend to drink lots wines from Beaujolais, Burgundy, Loire Valley, and Jura (at least if you’re me). Of course, this isn’t all we drink and we like to keep our minds and palates open, but these are the regions where many of our hearts lie. Thus it becomes easy to forget about the host of wonderful wines produced in the south of France, especially in lesser know appellations (I’m not talking Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Margaux here). These pockets of vinous greatness aren’t contiguous; they range from Provence to the far reaches of southwestern France, but they are united in that they generate some of the most interesting wines the south has to offer.

These are wines that combat the lurking and insidious notion that southern wines are heavy and somehow fail to balance their alcoholic weight with sufficient acidity. Balanced and essentially southern, each of these wines seems to bear its origin with aplomb- the iodine notes of Mourvedre grown by the Mediterranean to the ample tannins of Tannat and Cabernet ripening in the long, warm autumn sun of the southwest. It gives me great pleasure to recommend a handful of the elegant, terroir-driven southern wines that have stolen a piece of my cool-climate wine loving heart for your drinking enjoyment. In keeping with our philosophy, all of these wines are the result of low-impact, responsible farming in the vineyards and low-intervention winemaking in the cellar. -msb