Benoit Touquette

Coming Up

At L’Université de Bordeaux, the work began with structure, balance, and place as the baseline vocabulary of the craft. Benoit Touquette then moved into Napa Valley as an intern at Andy Erickson (winemaking consultant), where the pace and pressure of the cellar sharpened that foundation. Since 2007, his own consulting business has carried that line of work forward, with an emphasis on site-sensitive decisions rather than formula. Touquette works as a winemaking consultant for Realm Cellars.

Where They Are Now

This stage of the work is framed around first principles: the scientific rigor and creative instinct that drew Benoit Touquette to wine in the first place. “I’m excited to concentrate on the scientific and creative aspects that drew me to winemaking in the first place,” he says, making the shift sound less like a change in direction than a return to the tools that matter most. That return also opens time across multiple labels. While ensuring the continuity of Realm’s wines, Touquette will have more room for Fait-Main and Teeter Totter, along with other projects. The arrangement is familiar in modern winemaking, but here it reads as a practical division of labor: one body of work held steady, another given more bandwidth.

Signature

Benoit’s signature wines include Fait-Main, Teeter Totter, Teeter-Totter Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon. Across those bottlings, the through-line is attention to texture, depth, and the site behind the fruit. The style points to a maker working from nuance, not noise.

In Their Words “Through detailed attention in the vineyard and minimal intervention in the winery, I seek to make wines that express the unique attributes of the sites from which the wines are derived.”