Bandol is a small appellation. We could only find 18 bottles instead of our usual 20. But the wines were superb, whether old-fashioned and rustic in style or modern, which in Bandol means polished rather than flashy and oaky. Regardless, predominant flavors include dark fruits, licorice, herbs, tobacco and earth. If you shy away from overly fruity wines, like flamboyant Châteauneuf-du-Papes from warm vintages, Bandols offer excellent, more savory alternatives.

Image No. 1: Château de Pibarnon Bandol 2010 Credit... Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

“It’s a pretty true appellation, with a great sense of place without style getting in the way,” John said. Florence agreed, saying she found little evidence of pandering, that is, shaping the wines to meet criteria other than the producer’s own. Jessica said that while the wines were hearty, they were also nuanced and elegant.

Nuanced and elegant are not words often used to describe wines that are more typically, and with great respect, called bestial. But they are appropriate for our No. 1 bottle, the smooth, harmonious 2010 Château de Pibarnon, which can certainly be enjoyed now, though it will no doubt be better in a decade. The 2010 Bastide Blanche, No. 2 among our top wines, was more typical: rustic, soulful, somehow primitive and mouth-filling, yet lovely and inviting. It was also our best value at $25.

No producer is more identified with Bandol than Domaine Tempier. Back in the 1940s, Lucien Peyraud, its guiding force, spearheaded the re-establishment of Bandol as a meaningful appellation after the turn-of-the-century ravages of phylloxera. Later on, in the ’70s, Tempier inspired Alice Waters, Richard Olney, Kermit Lynch and others who kindled the American food and wine revolution.

The 2011 Tempier, our No. 7 bottle, was unexpectedly one of the more accessible bottles in the tasting; smooth, rich and enjoyable. It’s an excellent benchmark Bandol, though it wasn’t one of the more distinctive wines in the tasting. Tempier also makes some special cuvées, like La Tourtine, a superb single-vineyard wine of great intensity and freshness that certainly repays long aging.

Perhaps no Bandol is as resolutely old school as Château Pradeaux. It’s an uncompromising wine, displaying Bandol in its fully untamed state, and it’s a personal favorite. Even beneath the 2008 Pradeaux’s tough tannic structure you can sense its complexity, but, as I said, it’s uncompromising. It needs aging. Even more intense is Pradeaux’s Cuvée Longue Garde, made from old vine grapes in top vintages. It’s well worth putting away for 20 years.