Discovery and Mystery of the 2002 Grenache Blanc from Tablas Creek
When an unlisted 2002 Grenache Blanc turned up in the cellar, an archive search revealed a piece of history: Tablas Creek's first solo bottling of the grape, and the first in the US. Over two decades later, this rare bottle's showing was a shocker.
By Ian Consoli
There are surprising wines, and there are shocking wines. This 2002 Grenache Blanc fell into the latter, and it has an interesting history to back it up.
Did you know you can look up every wine we’ve ever made on our website? We keep an extended archive, so that if you find an old Tablas wine and you want to know what growing conditions were like and how the wine tasted upon release, you can find it.
This wine, however, does not exist on our website.
The earliest national release of Grenache Blanc was 2004 according to the wine’s webpage. So, where did this wine come in?
First I asked longtime winemaker Neil Collins, who told me that if it had a label, then it would have been released to the public. He noted that the details were a little blurry on a wine he would have made and bottled over twenty years ago! Fair. I shot proprietor Jason Haas a request for an explanation, then continued my own investigation.
I dug around our server archive. Most people wouldn’t know this, but Tablas Creek archived everything. EVERYTHING. Any information you need to know can be found in digital files going back to the nursery days. With enough queries and scrolling, you’re likely to find the information you are looking for. I found the label text for the 2002 still stored. It read:
“The 2002 Grenache Blanc is an excellent example of what this little-known grape can achieve in a favorable climate. In 1993, Tablas Creek Vineyard was the first winery to bring this varietal into the United States, and the 2002 vintage marks its first solo bottling. Bright aromas of green apple and mandarin are followed by a rich mouthfeel, clean flavors of green apple, mineral, and peach, and a long, lingering finish.”
Got it. So the 2004 was the first National Release, while this 2002 was the first solo bottling. Also, as I slightly suspected, this was the United States’ first-ever solo bottling of Grenache Blanc.
I then received a response from Jason. He said, “I have no idea, except that with some small-production wines in the early years and the fact that every page was hard-coded (so needed to be done by our webmaster at the time, who we paid by the hour), I think that things that only went out to our wine club maybe didn’t make it onto the site. I’ve attached the screen capture I got using the Wayback Machine from around that time, which you might get a kick out of.”
So there you have it. Old technologies and expensive manual labor. Don’t worry. We built the 2002 Grenache Blanc page, and it’s up there now.
I’m sure you’ve enjoyed this Hardy Boys-level investigation. I’m also very sure the whole time you’ve been asking, “So how was the wine??”
I’ll tell you, but first, let me tell you another story… I’m just kidding; let’s get to it.
Grenache Blanc is not a variety known for its ageability, but this wine would choose to differ. Stashed in the corner of a cellar for over two decades in ideal aging conditions, sealed under cork, this wine poured vibrant yet silky, with plenty of flavor to fill the palate. The green apple mentioned on its label still hung in there, though maybe a bit bruised. The peach was gone, but mineral remained, and that lingering finish must have elongated over the years.
Opened at an engagement party celebrating the next stage of a winemaker’s life, surrounded by winemaker friends, we all agreed that the wine was not just surprising, but stunning.
Cheers to stories from the past, surprising cellar finds, new stages of life, and the ongoing mysteries that surround them all.
