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Jason Haas

Proprietor at Tablas Creek Vineyard

Tasting the wines in the Fall 2013 VINsider Club shipment

Every six months, we send out a six-bottle shipment of wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club. The fall shipment is the showcase for our signature wines, and is highlighted by the newest vintages of our Esprit and Esprit Blanc. That's no different this year.

Counting sheep (and losing sleep)

By Levi Glenn Most of my mornings start with counting sheep. You herd that right. Raising sheep in an area that borders so much wild land means that we have to keep a close eye on the herd. The predators that populate this area are quite formidable, the most dangerous

Veraison 2013: one week ahead of normal as we turn for the home stretch

Veraison -- the point at which grapes start to turn color and accumulate sugar -- is a visible, easily measurable signpost in the growing season. There are several of these signposts, including budbreak, flowering, veraison, first harvest and last harvest. Taken together, they allow us to assess the progress of our vineyard

Photo essay: head-trained, dry-farmed Grenache on Scruffy Hill

Over recent years, we've become more and more convinced that dry farming is perhaps our most powerful tool in making wines that express their place. I wrote about this in detail in 2010, and since then most of our new plantings have been very traditional: head-trained, dry-

Congratulations to Neil Collins - 2013 San Luis Obispo County Winemaker of the Year

It was with great pleasure that we received the news that our winemaker Neil Collins was voted by his peers the 2013 Winemaker of the Year for San Luis Obispo County. You can read the full press release here. With one exception -- the 1997 vintage, for which Neil was working

Assessing the impact of the recent heat wave

Our recent heat wave has finally broken. Today's high was 82°, and it's already dropped a few degrees since then as a brisk on-shore breeze has picked up. This is a welcome change from recent days, the last eight of which all topped out at

Tablas Esprit and Beaucastel Châteauneuf: Takes Two to Tango

By Darren Delmore As the National Sales Manager for Tablas Creek vineyard, my travels keep leading me to circumstances where I’m asked to compare Esprit de Beaucastel to Chateâu de Beaucastel. “So which wine is better?” I’ve heard many times over, as if there’s a clear right

We welcome a new grape to California: Picardan

Today we make history as we plant 1000 vines of Picardan in a rugged block we've reserved for new grape varieties at the extreme western edge of our property. This is the culmination of a nearly decade-long process. We decided in late 2003 that we wanted to

Announcing the wines in the 2013 VINsider Collector's Edition shipment

One of my highlights each June is the tasting where we get to choose which library vintage of the Esprit and Esprit Blanc we will include in the VINsider Wine Club Collector's Edition shipment in September. For those of you unfamiliar with the Collector's Edition, we

The Pleasure of Discovered Bottles

By Robert Haas Over the last 59 years I have been buying, selling, and putting wines in my cellar, first in Vermont, and then in California as well. And, of course, there is the house cellar and the storage cellar in each place. So I have an excuse for occasionally