![Lulu Peyraud](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-The-Enduring-Spirit-of-Tempier-image_set_2_img_1-20340-medium.png)
Receive our Monthly Newsletter and Special Promotions. Stay up to date on new arrivals, sales, and events at our Berkeley shop.
The Enduring Spirit of Tempier
Receive our Monthly Newsletter and Special Promotions. Stay up to date on new arrivals, sales, and events at our Berkeley shop.
![Lulu Peyraud](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-The-Enduring-Spirit-of-Tempier-image_set_2_img_1-20340.png)
The Enduring Spirit of Tempier
Table of Contents
- Bandol Rosé & the “Lulu et Lucien” Rouge by Madison H. Brown
-
Lulu’s Aioli Secret
From the November 1989 Newsletter by Kermit Lynch - Grand Aioli by Christopher Lee
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...
![Lulu Peyraud making bouillabaisse](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Bandol-Ros--the-Lulu-et-Lucien-iRougei-image_set_1_img_1-20341.jpg)
Lulu Peyraud makes bouillabaisse
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
Buy this collection 2 bottles
Wines in this Collection
![2023 Bandol Rosé Domaine Tempier](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/products/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-2023-Bandol-Ros-product-image-9471-medium.jpg)
2023 Bandol Rosé
France | Provence
Embodying what Tempier is all about—celebration, gaiety, and delicious simplicity.
![2021 Bandol <i>Rouge</i> “Lulu et Lucien” Domaine Tempier](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/products/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-2021-Bandol-iRougei-Lulu-et-Lucien-product-image-8375-medium.jpg)
2021 Bandol Rouge “Lulu et Lucien”
France | Provence
As Kermit wrote, “there is always something wild and unpredictable about it, spirited, shall we say, yet it is honest and impeccable, full of warmth and finesse.”
Lulu is Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier. Aioli is the garlicky mayonnaise of Provence. An aioli means aioli and the assorted goodies onto which you he...
![Lulu and Kermit](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Lulus-Aioli-Secret-image_set_1_img_1-20342.jpg)
Lulu is Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier. Aioli is the garlicky mayonnaise of Provence. An aioli means aioli and the assorted goodies onto which you heap it: sweet potato, carrots, artichokes, hard-boiled egg, sea snails, salt cod, octopus stew, garden tomatoes, beets and so on. For grand occasions when guests are numerous (the end-of-harvest celebration, for example), Lulu always serves bouillabaisse or an aioli.
For some reason bouillabaise and aioli have taken on some sort of spiritual significance to me. When I eat them, I satisfy more than one kind of hunger.
Why then did the aioli gods turn on me? For years my aiolis fell apart. No matter how careful I was! Drop by excruciating drop I would add the olive oil, turning all the while until my arm wanted to fall off, fifteen, twenty minutes, and then in a matter of seconds my precious aioli would separate into an unappetizing glop of olive oil and raw egg. In frustration I finally tried to make it in a blender. Even that fell apart!
Zoot.
So I sat down with Lulu, mortar and pestle, garlic, egg yolk and olive oil, and asked her to show me.
“You add a little salt first to help grind the garlic to a paste, then the egg yolk, then you stir in the olive oil. It’s easy.” she said.
Folks, that is exactly how I always did it, so I insisted she demonstrate.
Well, first, there was no drip-drip-drip. Lulu splashed in a healthy glug of oil and turned it with the pestle until it firmed up, then glug-glug, another pour. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Surely it was bound to unbind.
But, to hurry along... Lulu did have a step she hadn’t mentioned. When her aioli began to thicken too much, she added a spoonful of tepid water. Since learning the tepid water trick I haven’t lost a single aioli and my life is more meaningful. But why had no one ever explained that you don’t want your aioli to get too thick? I always thought that was the goal.
Surprisingly, Lulu serves not rosé, but red wine with aioli. Soul food, soul wine. A young, new, cool red. The 1986 works.
A platter of summer vegetables—ripe tomatoes, green beans of all kinds, little thin-skinned potatoes, small cauliflowers, skinny carrots, quartered ...
![Grand Aioli at Tempier](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Grand-Aioli-image_set_1_img_1-20343.jpg)
A platter of summer vegetables—ripe tomatoes, green beans of all kinds, little thin-skinned potatoes, small cauliflowers, skinny carrots, quartered roasted beets, artichokes, if you can—along with a few halved hard-boiled eggs, a mortar of aioli redolent of young garlic, and, typically, chunks of warm salt cod, is one the most splendid dishes of French cooking. Instead of the cod, or maybe in addition to it, I like the elegant surprise of stewed octopus. If you can’t find good octopus, substitute squid or cuttlefish, though they’re just not the same. A Provençal rosé is made for this dish. Start in the morning.
You will need a slew of vegetables: green beans topped and blanched until soft; small potatoes such as Yellow Finns or German Butterballs, cooked until soft, then peeled and halved, or not; cauliflower broken into florets and blanched, keeping them crunchy; carrots peeled, 1/2 inch of stem left on, blanched but crunchy; artichokes cleaned and cooked until soft, then halved; small red beets roasted with a little water and salt, peeled and halved; nice, ripe tomatoes, quartered; sliced fresh fennel into pieces length-wise, keep raw.
OCTOPUS: Poach small octopus in salted water for 1 hour with a bay leaf and fennel tops. Cool in the poaching liquid, then cut octopus into 1-inch pieces. Sauté finely chopped onion in olive oil over low heat until golden but not browned. Turn up heat; add octopus pieces; sliced garlic; and a sprinkle of salt. Cook until liquid has evaporated. Add a splash of brandy and white wine and cook for a few minutes, until reduced to thick syrup. Add peeled, seeded, coarsely chopped ripe tomato and simmer slowly for about one hour, until octopus is tender. Adjust salt. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
AÏOLI: In a mortar, pound 5 or 6 garlic cloves and a big pinch of sea salt to a smooth paste. Briskly stir in three egg yolks and a teaspoon of water. Add olive oil, first a few drops at a time dribbled down the side of the mortar bowl, so oil flows slowly and with control into egg yolks. Continue until emulsion begins to hold, then gradually increase speed of oil addition, stirring constantly, until you have added about 2 cups, and mayonnaise is thick and glossy.
Arrange vegetables, halved hard-boiled eggs, and octopus on platters. If you wish, serve chunks of poached salt cod. Serve aïoli in bowls with big spoons on the side. And don’t forget the rosé.
Bandol Rosé & the “Lulu et Lucien” Rouge
by Madison H. Brown
Over the past nearly fifty years, many glorious tales have been written across these pages about Domaine Tempier....
![Lulu Peyraud making bouillabaisse](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Bandol-Ros--the-Lulu-et-Lucien-iRougei-image_set_1_img_1-20341-small.jpg)
Lulu’s Aioli Secret
From the November 1989 Newsletter
by Kermit Lynch
Lulu is Lulu Peyraud of Domaine Tempier. Aioli is the garlicky mayonnaise of Provence....
![Lulu and Kermit](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Lulus-Aioli-Secret-image_set_1_img_1-20342-small.jpg)
Grand Aioli
by Christopher Lee
A platter of summer vegetables—ripe tomatoes, green beans of all kinds, little thin-skinned potatoes, small cauliflowers, skinny carrots, quartered roasted beets, artichokes, if you can—along with a few halved hard-boiled eggs, a mortar of aioli redolent of young garlic, and, typically, chunks of warm salt cod, is one the most splendid dishes of French cooking....
![Grand Aioli at Tempier](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Grand-Aioli-image_set_1_img_1-20343-small.jpg)
Kermit once said...
![Terroirs](http://s3.amazonaws.com/efcheckout/kermitlynch/content/Kermit-Lynch-Wine-Merchant-Kermit-once-said-image_img_1-13433-medium.jpeg)
Kermit once said...
Great winemakers, great terroirs, there is never any hurry. And I no longer buy into this idea of “peak” maturity. Great winemakers, great terroirs, their wines offer different pleasures at different ages.
Inspiring Thirst, page 312