Don't sleep on the importance of Paso Robles' chilly nights

On Monday, I got back from two weeks of vacation in Italy. It was a lovely trip with family celebrating a milestone birthday for my mom. I come back having felt like I unplugged successfully from work, which I'm not always great at doing. Our destination within Italy

Grenache Through the Years: A Study of Delectation

By Chelsea Franchi Wine, at its very core, is about joy.  Even within the most lauded, serious, imposing bottles, there’s a spark of elation to be found and savored.  There is joy in the wine itself, of course – but just as much in the hearts of those who share

A Local Gem Shines at Tablas Creek: We Interview Tasting Room Lead Jules Giese

By Ian Consoli When guests visit our tasting room, there's a handful of faces they are almost guaranteed to see. There's the old guard, such as John, Charlie, and Rumyn, and then there are newer faces like Jules. Jules, who has been with Tablas since 2022,

2025 Summer Solstice Vineyard Tour: It's Been Average, Which Is Just Perfect

One month ago, I wrote about how we'd exited frost season and entered flowering in ideal conditions. Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy. Just... benign. I'm pleased to report that the last month warmed up, as you'd expect in late May

Celebrating the bottling of Muscardin... and the completion of the Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape collection

I can feel my dad smiling down on Tablas Creek this week. On Thursday, we'll be hosting an industry event in which we'll be showing varietal bottlings of all fourteen of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape grapes that we imported from Beaucastel. We know that this will be a

Raise a glass! Wine is a major American economic engine.

When I hear people talking about wine, and when I read articles written about wine, it's not usually about its economic value. It's much more likely to be an exploration of its flavors, or a celebration of its compatibility with food and conviviality, or its ability

2024 Red Blending: Power, Poise, and Echoes of 2017

Last week we finally got to sit down and taste the nineteen (!) red wines from the 2024 vintage we'd built around the blending table over the few weeks. The tasting highlighted the incredible combination of power and poise that we'd all remarked upon during the blending

Two things to celebrate: 2025 frost season ends with no damage and flowering begins under ideal conditions

This past weekend was the Paso Robles Wine Festival, our unofficial end to frost season. For the second consecutive year, it was a picture-perfect day, in the 70s and breezy, with both winter's below-freezing nights and summer's hundred-degree days feeling comfortably far away. And yet, as

An appreciation of one of the most ambitious and exciting wine dinners I've hosted... and the remarkable Master Sommelier behind it

I just got back from two weeks on the east coast. This most recent week I was in Washington DC representing the members of WineAmerica, meeting with the offices of our senators and representatives, advocating for policies that will help American wineries. The week before, I was in New York,

A Picture Worth 1,000 Words, Limestone Edition

Every now and then I stumble upon a photograph that illustrates something essential about the place we live and farm. I had that experience over the weekend. It was on a run not far from my house in the Templeton Gap. Running up a hill where the road builders had