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Jason Haas

Proprietor at Tablas Creek Vineyard

Seeing red -- and green -- in Santa Fe

By Darren Delmore Before spending a week in New Mexico for the 22nd annual Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta, I called my gastroenterologist to inquire about getting my esophagus lined with stainless steel. It seemed like the smart thing to do. The residents of New Mexico’s high desert

Harvest photo of the day: Ripening Mourvedre

By the onset of October, the vines are starting to show signs of stress. This is not typically a bad thing; this stress triggers an internal mechanism that pushes a plant to ripen its fruit so it can reproduce. And the outward signs can be beautiful, including fall-like colors

Harvest update: perfect ripening conditions dominate late September, but we see signs of fall

The second half of September continued to point our way toward a productive, top-notch harvest. Asking for cool (but not cold) nights and warm (but not hot) days, and ample sunshine, is almost a cliche in wine country, but that's exactly what we got, providing excellent ripening

Introducing the new Patelin de Tablas Rosé

We love our Rosé. It shows the charms of Mourvedre when made into a pink wine by being rich yet refreshing, complex yet appealing, and worthy of pairing with substantial food. But it's always been a bit of an outlier in the world of rosés, somewhat darker than

A Family (Winemakers) Trip to the Golden Gate

By Darren Delmore As we loaded up nine cases of wine into the Subaru on a sunny Sunday morning, I immediately got the drift that two days of representing TCV at Family Winemakers of California’s San Francisco tasting wasn’t going to be a relaxing, casual affair. Pouring 108

Harvest, weeks one and two: zero to sixty in no time flat

Most vintages, harvest starts slowly, with a few bins the first day, then a little break, then a selective pick off another block, then another break, then finally a larger picking, then another break. Not this year. We started on September 4th with our first lot of Viognier for the

Common-sense sustainability

I'm in New York this week, helping kick off the release of the 2010 Esprit de Beaucastel and 2010 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc. My hotel, like most hotels these days, has one of the signs that tells you that in order to help protect the environment, my sheets

Harvest 2012 Begins!

And, as of 1:30pm today, we're live, with the arrival of the first fruit of the 2012 harvest. As usual in the world of Rhones, we started with Viognier, this for our Patelin de Tablas Blanc from Paso Ridge, at the warm north end of the El

Pre-Harvest Jubilation

By Chelsea Franchi We had our scale certified last week, which was just one more reminder of the ever-present fact that harvest is barreling down on us (no pun intended). Steaming barrels in the afternoon sun Harvest is what we live for (well, work for) here in the cellar.

An anniversary dinner of rack of lamb, roasted tomatoes and avocado salad with Esprit de Beaucastel

This is a busy week of celebrations for me. Meghan's birthday was Friday. Sebastian's birthday is Monday. And our anniversary was Saturday. As it's squeezed between other parties, we often keep it low-key, and certainly compared to Friday night's amazing dinner