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Jason Haas

Truth, Fiction and Self-fulfilling Prophecy in Wholesale Wine Sales

Sure, consumers are cutting back. And sure, sizzle is out in favor of substance. But it is my belief that the wholesale wine market is perpetuating and strengthening the much-trumpeted phenomenon that consumers are only buying the least expensive wines. The mechanism is that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. How has

A great blue heron visits the Tablas Creek wetlands

Several of us were sitting on our patio having lunch when a blue heron sailed over the vineyard before coming to rest in the Tablas Creek wetlands that border Adelaida road, just downhill from our entrance. I got one decent shot (right) before I scared it off by getting too

Wine Clubs vs. Mailing Lists

I've gotten several questions recently on why we choose to use the wine club model while other California wineries choose to sell their wine to their supporters through a mailing list. As I have been answering these questions, I thought that it might be interesting to delve a

I see trees of green...

I was struck as I walked back from the vineyard toward the winery today by the different shades of green in the landscape. The grapevines really stand out in the landscape, yellowy-green and very lively-looking. The olive trees which we use to line the roads are grey-green, the lombardy poplars

Anchoring Bias (AKA Follow the Leader) in Community Tasting Notes

As more wineries focus marketing attention on new media such as blogs, social networking sites, and online bulletin boards I've begun to see some suggestions that the age of the all-powerful wine critic is ending. I have my doubts as to that (of course, I also have doubts

Early impressions of the cool 2009 early summer

So far, except for a scorching hot weekend that (of course) coincided with the 2009 Paso Robles Wine Festival, it's been cool. Days typically have been topping out in the mid- to high-70's, with relatively frequent cloud cover at night. Normally, by June, we're

Why bother with single-varietal wines if blends are better?

I got a great question recently from Tablas Creek VINsider Wine Club member and blogger Steven Stumpf, whose blog www.thebestofwines.com is one of my must-reads each week. He asked, in essence (and much more diplomatically than I'm rephrasing it) why we make single varietal wines if

Paso Robles Wine Festival 2009

Last weekend was the annual Paso Robles Wine Festival. We joined 92 other Paso Robles wineries to pour in the park on Saturday morning to pour wine for the roughly 4200 attendees. Of course, it was hot. You can just about set your calendar in Paso Robles to the fact

A vertical tasting of Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel 2000-2007 and Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc 2001-2008

This week, Francois Perrin joined us at Tablas Creek for one of his semi-annual visits. Francois' visits are always a pleasure. He gives us someone with decades of experience off of whom we can bounce ideas or with whom we can search for solutions to problems that have been

Paso Robles Big Sky

I spent an hour or so rambling around the vineyard on Monday to get a sense of to what extent we'd been hit by the frosts the mornings of April 25th and 26th. It looks like the damage was serious -- the worst that we've seen