The French Riviera has been a dream destination since I was in my twenties, when I first summered in Saint-Tropez with the Belgian baron who would go on to become my husband. We’d travel along the Corniche des Maures, the rugged coastline south of the city, but never made it as far as Bormes-les-Mimosas, a spectacular seaside village flanked by mountains that I would later discover through my wine writing. The village has been the summer residence of the presidents of France for years, where they vacation in a lovely chateau overlooking the sea.
Nestled between Saint-Tropez and Marseille, Bormes-les-Mimosas is home to bird sanctuaries, nature trails and one stunning wine property, Château Malherbe, where grapes are stomped by foot, and biodynamic viticulture produces the purest expression of its Mediterranean terroir.
The 148-acre vineyard estate has been in the Ferrari family (no relation to the Italian sports-car maker) since the 1940s and has been organic since the very beginning. “Never have any synthetic chemicals been used,” says fourth- generation winemaker Sébastien Ferrari. In 2019, he brought on a consultant from Burgundy, natural wine pioneer Philippe Pacalet, to help take things further, introducing a whole new series of esoteric agricultural practices, transforming the estate to biodynamic viticulture.
“Farming biodynamically requires that we work in rhythm with nature,” Ferrari says, explaining that it is based on the agricultural principles of Rudolf Steiner, which have a spiritual and cosmic component. “We use plant-based teas, composts and preparations to strengthen the resilience of vines.” The building blocks of biodynamic agriculture include horn manure sprays to stimulate microbial life in the soil; teas made from nettle, chamomile and yarrow to replace the need for copper and sulfur; horsetail and willow to enhance vine health.
Pacalet advocates foot treading—a rarity in Provence—to gently extract color and tannins from the grapes during maceration while retaining beautiful aromatics in the wine. His Burgundy wines are known for their intense aromas and for their “life force,” a buzzword in biodynamics. He describes one of his most celebrated cuvees, Charmes-Chambertin as “a living wine whose soul you can feel—just like a human.”
At harvest time at Château Malherbe, the winemaking team treads the grapes twice a day, in keeping with tradition. The process lasts several days and is done in small stainless-steel vats.
There are two vineyard sites here with different terroirs. Pointe du Diable is a 70-acre coastal vineyard with maritime influences, and the Malherbe terroir, which is at the foothills of Cap Bénat, and has clay-schist soils yielding concentrated berries that produce wines with intense minerality and aromatic balance.
Billecart-Salmon Sélections, the distribution arm of the Champagne house, recently began importing two Château Malherbe Grands Vins to the U.S. The Malherbe Blanc 2022 ($55) is made from a blend of rolle (vermentino) and sémillion grapes, which are handpicked and aged on the lees in a mix of barrels, stainless-steel tanks, and concrete eggs. It’s a rich and opulent wine with seductive floral and fruit aromas—of mimosas, chamomile, melon and mandarin—and irresistible salinity on its fresh finish.
The Malherbe Rouge 2022 ($55) is perfumed with violet and rose fragrances and possesses fruit flavors with hints of white pepper, spice and oak. It’s made from a blend of grenache, syrah and mourvèdre grapes grown on the slopes of Cap Bénat, that are handpicked, foot trodden and then aged on their lees for 10 months. The wine is lush with silky tannins.
You might wonder, this being Provence, where is the rosé? Though Malherbe does produce a flavorful grenache-mourvèdre-cinsault rosé, the white and red wines are the real stars here, embodying the life force of top-shelf biodynamic Burgundies, and distinguishing this beautiful property from a veritable sea of pink wine competitors.