Domaine du Bagnol Cassis

The Place... Cassis is a pretty seaside town on the Cote d’Azur. This village rescued my sanity- I cannot view its wines objectively. Fond memories obstruct my modest analytical capacity. Cassis was a refuge from the sweaty, chaotic labrynith of Marseille, a destination for an escape. Tourism, not wine, keeps Cassis affluent. A rocky, sun-bleached beach, warm breezes, old men idly smoking cigarettes and playing boules- you can drink and enjoy Cassis anywhere, but it is the perfect wine for here, it’s native terroir. This stereotypical Provencal scene attracts the leisure class of many nations, who also idly wander the streets and coastline of Cassis, eating seafood, drinking rosé. As is the case in much of Provence, pink wine is fully 1/3 of the town’s wine output. Take a few bottles home with you and they’re good, but just not the same. . .unless you live by the sea, with white cliffs and wild herbs and crusty French seniors a part of your landscape.

Tourism and Terroir... Limestone cliffs and the sea are as important to the exceptional quality of wine made here as they were to restoring my inner balance. They shape the wine of Cassis. What vines exist are perched in a half-bowl of south-facing hills behind the town. Today there are barely a dozen bottlers of wine in the AOC of Cassis, exploiting less than 500 acres of land. Few bottles escape the restaurants and summer villas of Provence. Coastal Provence can suffer bouts of torrid summer heat. Without the cooler (particularly nighttime) temperatures created by the Mediterranean Sea, the wines of Cassis would have insufficient acidity. They would be dull, flat, like a mediocre white wine from the Rhone. Add to this acidity a mineral character leached up by vine roots boring down through brittle, porous limestone and the resulting wine has appealing freshness and delineation to its ripe fruit flavors.

The People... I’m happy that importer Neal Rosenthal has ferried this piece of Provence to us in pristine condition across thousands of miles. The wares of Jean-Louis Genovesi, a man who has labored to return this historic estate to former glory deserves pampering. In fact, without Rosenthal Wine Merchant’s commitment to temperature-controlled shipping from winery to retailer, you would only taste the skeleton of this wine. Genovesi makes true wines, capable of life and evolution. His scrupulous vineyard work and delicate handling of Marsanne, Clairette and Ugni Blanc grapes would be wasted without the presence of a diligent importer. Jean-Louis purchased Domaine du Bagnol from the Lefevre family, but his estate’s history begins in 1867 with the work of the Marquis de Fesque. Today 6 hectares of land remain in use. Domaine du Bagnol points the way forward for one of Provence’s hidden, obscure, valuable appellations.