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Jason Haas

Harvest, weeks of September 20 & 27: A warm start to fall and a slow start to the harvest

After our cool summer, the warm weather that began about a week ago has been most welcome. And although it's been extreme in parts of Southern California (113 in Los Angeles, anyone?) it's just a normal September heat wave here. We did get up to 104

Five great events for food & wine lovers

I'm currently looking out at the adobes of Santa Fe, on a beautiful fall day. I'm in town for the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta, an annual celebration of the culinary traditions of one of the best food towns in America. This is one event

A great idea by the Rhone Rangers: Pneumonia's Last Syrah

Most of you are probably aware that Syrah faces a challenging marketplace. Even articles complimentary about Syrahs (as nearly all of them are) feel compelled to begin with a story about how hard they are to sell. A recent article by Eric Asimov in the New York Times began "

Notes from the Cellar: Harvest 2010 Begins! (AKA Fruit and Football; It Must be Fall)

By Chelsea Magnusson Experts claim that the (official) first day of autumn is September 22nd. Typically, I hate to disagree with expert opinion, but my first day of fall was yesterday. Supporting evidence includes the fact that Sundays and Mondays are now spent watching football, but the primary reason for

An updated weather assessment for the 2010 vintage

In late July, I wrote the blog post Refreshingly... brisk? An assessment of the unusual weather of summer 2010 in which I looked at the accumulated weather data for the vintage up to that point, and found that it fell most similar to the 1999 and 2005 vintages, both cool

An update on construction: photos of a space taking shape

It's been wild watching a new building take shape outside our windows over the past two months. As regular readers know (my dad posted in June about our pending construction) we're adding 8,000 square feet onto our winery building, incorporating more office space, a new

Tasting the Fall 2010 "Collector's Edition" Wines

Last fall, we debuted the VINsider Wine Club Collector's Edition. Members of this wine club get three bottles of older vintages of Esprit de Beaucastel and Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc each fall (as well as a few more bottles of the newest Esprit and Esprit Blanc) in addition

How to make the most of trade and consumer tastings

Last Sunday, I was standing behind the Tablas Creek table at the Family Winemakers of California tasting in San Francisco. We were one of 340 wineries pouring wines for more than 1700 trade and 700 consumers (an additional 1700+ trade came on Monday). Family Winemakers (as it's known

Notes from the Cellar: Assembling the 2009 reds, and getting ready for harvest 2010...

By Chelsea Magnusson The cellar has been an absolute mess this week. And for good reason - veraison has begun in the vineyard, and we are slowly wrapping our heads around the fact that another harvest season is right around the corner. It looks like a disaster, but I promise,

Côtes (de Tablas), Côte (d’Or) and the pleasures of aged wine

By Robert Haas The age of a wine is a relative thing. Some wines are old young and others are young old. Many great red wines are rushed to the table too young these days. Most restaurants and retailers do not have the financing or space to lay down wines