Winemaker Notes
At this stage, La Tourtine is open, fruit-forward, and alluring. Zesty and vibrant, with notes of black cherries, blood orange, and iron, this bottle will be hard to keep your hands off now.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A refined version of Bandol, showing nicely sculpted tannins and pretty violet high tones. Salty, with iron minerality and brambly garrigue notes for savory dimension. Oak sits gently in the background, letting the fruit and terroir shine. Offers sneaky length, with saline mineral details and savory acidity keeping this energetic through the finish, which stretches way out. Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsaut. Drink now through 2032. 211 cases imported.
Full of ripe fruit, and robust, earthy goodness, Mourvèdre is actually of Spanish provenance, where it still goes by the name Monastrell or Mataro. It is better associated however, with the Red Blends of the Rhône, namely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mourvèdre shines on its own in Bandol and is popular both as a single varietal wine in blends in the New World regions of Australia, California and Washington. Somm Secret—While Mourvèdre has been in California for many years, it didn’t gain momentum until the 1980s when a group of California winemakers inspired by the wines of the Rhône Valley finally began to renew a focus on it.
Provence’s leader in concentrated and age-worthy red wines, Bandol is home to the dense, deep and earthy Mourvèdre grape. Like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Bandol produces characterful reds that, while approachable in their youth, are typically designed for the cellar.
Given its coastal, Provencal situation, Bandol also naturally produces an assortment of charming, aromatic rosés made of Mourvèdre, Grenache and Cinsault.