Winemaker Notes
The 2017 Les Tourelles de la Crée, Côte de Beaune ‘Knights Templar Cuvée’ Pinot Noir, extremely expressive upon approach, displays strawberry and red raspberry aromas. The palate is awash with delightful red fruit flavors and fresh tobacco notes. Texturally, this young Burgundian Pinot Noir is silky, with soft tannins and balanced acidity that leads to a long and persistent finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Notes of oak characterize the nose on this wine, aligning themselves with ripe cherry. The palate fleshes out that lovely cherry note, countering the oak and delivering good structure and freshness.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
A classic source of exceptional Chardonnay as well as Pinot Noir, the Côte de Beaune makes up the southern half of the Côte d’Or. Its principal wine-producing villages are Pernand-Vergelesses, Aloxe-Corton, Beaune, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet.
The area is named for its own important town of Beaune, which is essentially the center of the Burgundy wine business and where many negociants center their work. Hospices de Beaune, the annual wine auction, is based here as well.