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Jason Haas

Proprietor at Tablas Creek Vineyard

A frosty winter morning (and more good weather ahead!)

We're finally in a great winter weather pattern. We've seen measurable rain each of the last four days (totaling about 2.5 inches) and a couple of very cold nights in the mid-20s. It's a terrific time of year for this, as the

Spectacular Winter Sunsets in Paso Robles

I don't always enjoy December in Paso Robles. It gets old that it's dark at 5pm; I get tired of driving home dodging deer; and it's usually cold enough here in winter evenings that even taking the kids for a walk around the neighborhood

Thoughts on our Annual Futures Tasting and En Primeur Offering

Each December, we offer our VINsider Wine Club members the chance to taste the upcoming release of our two top red wines, before bottling, and reserve these wines at a futures-only 30% discount off of expected release price. We began this program back in 2003 (offering futures on the

We're Number 39! (a.k.a. an analysis of Thanksgiving wine drinking patterns, courtesy of CellarTracker)

CellarTracker is a fascinating tool. It is the world's most successful Wine 2.0 site, with over 66,000 registered users, 10,000,000 bottles entered into inventory, and over 700,000 user-written tasting notes. I use it to monitor the reviews of Tablas Creek wines on

Thanksgiving Wine Suggestions from the Tablas Creek Staff

We've always felt that Tablas Creek wines make great pairings with Thanksgiving meals. The Rhone whites (particularly those based on Roussanne) are rich enough to stand up to turkey or ham, and the Rhone reds (particularly those based on Grenache) are fruity enough, spicy enough, and have enough

Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 6: Winter's Approach

Without particularly intending to, I realized that I'd taken several vineyard photos that showed the approach of the winter season through a chilly quality of the light and a selection of wind-blown leaves and (comparatively) bare vines. It seems a fitting conclusion to this autumn vineyard photo

Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 5: Grenache

Our Grenache section is always one of the most beautiful in the vineyard. Grenache vines are vigorous, and provide satisfyingly thick trunks from even fairly young vines. The leaves are a vibrant yellow-green during the spring and summer, noticeably brighter than other varietals. They stay green later in the

Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 4: Seeding the Cover Crop

There's not much to do in the vineyard at this time of year. You need to wait for everything to go fully dormant before you prune, and once harvest is complete, the only typical action you take is to make sure that the vines get some irrigation as

Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 3: Relics of a Challenging Vintage

2008 was a challenging vintage. As I described in my 2008 vintage assessment, we saw issues with late frosts in the spring, early frosts in the fall, low yields, shatter and uneven ripening. These all left marks on the vineyard which you can see even now. This first photo shows

Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 2: Near and Far

One of the things that I always love to try to capture in my photographs are the perception of distance. It's a challenging thing to try to translate the wide open spaces of the vineyard (and that feel of having something interesting all around you) into the fixed