Region: Provence, France
Appellation: Bandol
Color/Style: Red Wine
Grapes: Mourvedre, Grenache, Cinsault

A visit with Alain Pascal in La Cadière d’Azur in June confirmed that his vintage 2016 rouge is one that will grace my California table often. Most likely as Jim Harrison might have enjoyed it, with copious quantities of crushed garlic and red meat (wild game, if I can get my hands on some—my southern roots are distant out here in California—I need to find someone who will trade me hunting rights for wine!). Alain’s largely whole-cluster Mourvèdre in 2016 is a dark beauty, a tapenade of black olives infused with wild southern herbs, earth, and stones, with a glorious tannin that shows no aggression.

—Dixon Brooke