Over the past nearly fifty years, many glorious tales have been written across these pages about Domaine Tempier. On my first visit last spring, as we walked up the shady driveway lined with plane trees, I felt a sudden trepidation—like I was stepping foot on holy ground, here at the mecca of my KLWM fine-wine pilgrimage. But my nerves calmed in a moment, as our gracious, easygoing host Daniel Ravier (who’s been running the show since 2000) welcomed us warmly in the little courtyard, handing out glasses filled with cold rosé. Down in the cellar, we tasted old vintages of lore, wines as vivid, complex, and alive as I’ve ever experienced. For lunch, we picnicked on a terrace overlooking the vineyards, bottles sweating in the cooler under a blazing Mediterranean sun.
     This place, these wines, they grab hold of you and instill you with an immediate sense of joie de vivre—a sense of magic, as Jim Harrison put it. The exuberant spirit of this mythic domaine is enduring, fierce, and tangible—its essence captured in every bottle. The 2021 vintage of Tempier’s flagship rouge (now known as the “Lulu & Lucien” cuvée) is here and tasting pleasurably fresh, the perfect toothsome red for chilling down to pour with epic grilled fare. And of course, right on time, the latest vintage of Bandol Rosé has just landed on our shores, to the giddy delight of us devout.

^{“If I have ever been to a home that may suitably be called magic it must be that of the Peyraud family in Bandol. The place has all the delicate mystery one senses in reading Alain Fournier’s Les Grandes Meaulnes (in English, The Wanderer) but also the very visceral, sensual quality of the best food one is likely to eat prepared by Lulu Peyraud. Once there, there is not the slightest desire to ever leave, not for Paris let alone home.” —Jim Harrison, March 2000 Newsletter}

^{“It is impossible for me not to love the wines of Domaine Tempier. Once you have visited the Peyrauds in their 17th century house surrounded by perfectly tended vines, eaten Lulu’s garlicky food cooked over the charcoal, and drunk the wines with Lucien in his cellar, it is clear that they love wine and they love people drinking wine. Their dedication and belief in the beauty of the ancient Mourvèdre grape is positively convincing. I believe they have made truly great wines and will continue to do so.” — Alice Waters, February 1978 Newsletter}