Domaine de la Tour du Bon - En Sol 2017

Winemaking in amphorae has tamed the Mourvèdre’s fiery spirit, allowing it to purr in the glass without losing any of its assertive character. Velvety tannins, a fine, tight texture, and lovely freshness, all accompanied by a lovely expression of black fruit, aromatic herbs, blackcurrant, blueberry, bramble, and garrigue flowers. It’s beautiful, sincere, and utterly charming.

Agnès Hocquard-Henry runs her estate with the philosophy of producing less but better. On her 14 hectares, she produces elegant wines that reflect the terroir, sometimes venturing off the beaten path to create original micro-cuvées. The reds, rosés, and whites are beautifully crafted, but the most surprising is the “en-sol” cuvée, produced in minuscule quantities with Elisabetta Foradori, the leading authority on amphora wines in Italy. Here, the Mourvèdre expresses a surprising suppleness and finesse—vibrant and stripped of all artifice. We loved it!

One of the most original Mourvèdre wines in the region. The grapes were destemmed and macerated for six months in amphorae, resulting in a floral bouquet that is still subtle and a gently extracted body. A rough, lively texture gives it plenty of personality and a surprising sensation of fresh grapes.

The Hocquard family has been at the helm of this estate since 1968. In Le Castellet, La Tour du Bon benefits from a unique terroir of limestone and sandy soils with varied exposures, making it one of the earliest-ripening wines in Bandol. As early as the mid-1980s, the estate began to make a name for itself, notably with the creation in 1987 of the Saint-Ferréol cuvée—a sunny, refined red wine sourced from three plots planted around a hill that is twenty million years old. Then, starting in 1990, with the arrival of Agnès Henry-Hocquard at the helm of the estate, the wine reached new heights! Surrounded by winemakers from the Loire Valley (Thierry Puzelat and Antoine Pouponeau), she has successfully maintained a course of excellence with wines that retain great personality and age harmoniously, displaying a delicate profile without ever showing signs of excessive ripeness, extraction, or aging. Since 2013, this curious winemaker has been setting aside Mourvèdre grapes for the En Sol cuvée, which is macerated for six months in amphorae. This is an ancestral yet perilous practice—the wines can become heavy and lack precision—but she has mastered it magnificently, producing a refined red with a rare iodine-like quality.