Tasting the Wines in the Fall 2011 VINsider Wine Club Shipment

Every six months, we send out a six-bottle shipment of wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club.  The fall shipment is the showcase for our signature wines, and is typically centered around both our Esprit de Beaucastel and our Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc.  Beyond that, though, we

Veraison 2011: a Time to Assess Progress (Late) and Yield (Light)

After spending about an hour out in the vineyard this afternoon and finding scattered but significant veraison in Mourvedre and Syrah, just the first hints of color in a few top-of-hill Grenache clusters, and no coloring at all in Counoise, I think we can safely say that things

Tablas Creek 101: Why (and How) We Use So Many Grapes

By Robert Haas Last night a long-time friend and wine lover asked why we planted and utilized so many different varieties of Rhône grapes in our Tablas Creek wines and what their individual contributions are to our six different blends, or assemblages as they are known in France. Well,

The Serenity of Foudres (Sometimes)

By Chelsea Magnusson The addition of the new tasting room and foudre rooms has been a bit of a challenge for those of us in the cellar.  Where before, we could do most of our work on the foudres in private, it now feels as though we are on display

Tasting a decade of Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc: 2001-2010

I got a question from my brother about a wine dinner we'll be doing together in Washington, DC this fall. (At Brasserie Beck, September 27th; should be amazing; more information here.)  He wanted to include an older vintage of Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc in the menu and had

Reflections on Tablas Creek's 2011 Best Winery Blog award

On Saturday, at the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville, VA, the winners of the 2011 Wine Blog Awards were announced.  One of them was us!   Thank you to everyone who voted; the award was 50% determined by votes  from the public.  The other 50% was determined by the votes

What does it mean when a wine is in a "closed" phase? Think teenager...

I recently got a question from a friend who had been looking at the vintage chart that we keep on our Web site (a shot of the most current one is to the right; click on it to get a larger picture or on the link above for the PDF

Other Wines We Love: 2009 Bishop's Peak Pinot Noir

The next in an occasional series of our non-Tablas Creek wine discoveries. I greatly admire Brian Talley and his team at Talley Vineyards.  They make great Chardonnay and Pinot Noir year in and year out, both their vineyard-designates (Rosemary's, Oliver's, and Rincon) and their

Introducing Viticulturist Levi Glenn, who explains shoot thinning

We've had the same vineyard team here at Tablas Creek for the last fifteen years.  Neil Collins has overseen both the vineyard and the winemaking since 1998.  He is assisted by Winemaker Ryan Hebert and Vineyard Manager David Maduena, both of whom have been here since our 1997

A family stay in Vinsobres

By Robert Haas Where?  Well, Vinsobres is in the Drôme, the next département north of the Vaucluse: kind of the northern limit of the southern Vallée du Rhône. We were in the outskirts of Les Cornuds, a village -- patelin, if you will -- of about four houses just east of Vinsobres.