Celebrating a Recent Burst of Progress on Direct Shipping

It seems like progress in direct shipping goes in waves. There's a small flurry of movement, in states widely separated in geography and culture, and then a period when nothing much happens.  Then, for whatever reason, progress starts back up. About six weeks ago I wrote a post

Photo Essay: Green, Green, Green

Normally, the sign at the edge of our head-trained Mourvedre vineyard just outside our tasting room is to protect people from a twisted ankle, should they stray off the tarmac. Now, we're worried we might lose them in the cover crop! The growth in the vineyard'

Tasting the wines in the spring 2015 VINsider Wine Club shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club.  In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club.  In others, the club gets a first look at a wine that may see a later national

Another way in which Paso Robles is cooler than you think

This week, fresh on the heels of the wonderful storms that blew through last weekend, headlines from around California have made a quick about-face to resume talking about what has been so far a warm, dry 2015 overall. The LA Times warned of powerful winds and record high temperatures

Community Roundup: Major Awards for Qupe and L'Aventure, Imminent Rain, Snow in the Rhone, and New Direct Shipping Opportunites

Last year, I debuted a weekly feature on the blog called Weekly Roundup, focusing on interesting news from our communities (Rhone and Paso Robles), fun articles that we'd found on the world of wine, and pieces from other social media channels that we thought would interest a wider

Rainfall whiplash: a less optimistic drought assessment after a record-dry January

In mid-December, we seemed set for a great rainfall winter.  A series of storms had dropped 7.75 inches over three weeks, with measurable rainfall fifteen different days of twenty-two and no more than two consecutive rain-free days.  We were ahead of our annual averages, and the

Toasting the 49ers "Appellation 49"

By Robert Haas Just after Christmas, Jason and I had the fun and honor to be invited to pour Tablas Creek for guests at the last 49ers game of the season.  The sparkling new Levi's Stadium has built-in wine bars incorporated into their club boxes, and the

State of the Union, Wine Shipping Edition

[Editor's Note: We have updated this post as of January 2021. You can find that post at Wine Shipping State of the Union, 2021 Edition.] The preamble to the United States Constitution is short and sweet: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form

New Lambs, 2015 Vintage

It's a quiet interlude here at Tablas Creek.  We're starting to slowly prune the vineyard, but with budbreak two months or (hopefully) more away, there's not great urgency.  The 2014 vintage wines are nearly done fermenting, but not quite done enough to start blending.

A Retrospective Tasting of Every Wine from the 2005 Vintage

Last year, we began what I hope will become an annual tradition: looking back as each year begins on the vintage from ten years previous.  Doing so encourages us to open wines that we wouldn't otherwise open with a decade of age, and gives a wide-ranging perspective