If you ask serious wine drinkers which Provence estate they would visit if they could visit only one, a significant number would say Domaine Tempier. The estate sits outside Le Castellet, in the hills behind Bandol on the Mediterranean coast, and it has been making wine from Mourvedre grapes since the 1930s. What it does with that grape is still, almost a century later, more interesting than what most of the world does with more famous varieties.
The family behind the wine
Tempier's modern reputation was built by Lucien Peyraud, who took over the estate from his father-in-law in the late 1930s and spent the following decades persuading the appellation to make Mourvedre the dominant grape in Bandol. It was not a popular argument at the time - Mourvedre is difficult to grow, late-ripening, and prone to reduction in the cellar. Peyraud persisted, and the wines he made proved the point. Today the estate is run by his grandchildren, with the same insistence on Mourvedre and the same lack of interest in making things easier than they need to be.
The wines
Tempier produces a range of reds, a rose, and a small amount of white. The reds are what the estate is known for, and they divide into a Bandol rouge classique and a series of single-vineyard cuvees - La Tourtine, Cabassaou, and Migoua - each of which expresses a different character of the garrigue landscape around the domaine.
The classique is the place to start. It blends Mourvedre with Grenache and Cinsault, which softens the Mourvedre's natural austerity into something more approachable in youth. Even so, it rewards patience - open a bottle young and it can feel tight and slightly closed. Come back to it after five or six years and it has become a different wine altogether: leather and dried herbs and dark fruit, with a savouriness that feels genuinely Mediterranean in a way that is hard to manufacture.
The single-vineyard wines are more serious propositions. Cabassaou, the most sought-after, is nearly pure Mourvedre from old vines on limestone soils. It is not a wine for casual Tuesday drinking - it needs time, decanting, and food with some weight to match it. But when it is right, there is nothing quite like it in France.
The rose
Tempier's rose deserves attention on its own terms, not as an afterthought to the reds. It is a blend of Mourvedre, Grenache, and Cinsault that manages to be serious without being solemn - full of red fruit and herbs, dry and textured, the kind of rose that works as well with food as it does on its own. It is also one of the few Provence roses worth buying in some quantity, because it holds up better than most over a year or two.
What to pay and what to expect
The Bandol rouge classique comes in at around £35 to £40 a bottle. The single-vineyard cuvees run from £55 to £80, with Cabassaou at the upper end. None of these is cheap, but Tempier's wines are made in small quantities from difficult terrain, and the prices reflect that honestly. If you are going to spend money on Provence, spend it here.