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Vin de Paille: A Dessert Wine Making Technique for the Obsessed

We're making Vin de Paille this year for the first time since 2007. For those of you who don't know (we don't make much of the Vin de Paille, and it generally doesn't make it into distribution) Vin de Paille is a

A New Harvest 2010 Photo Essay

We've just published a photo essay, including photographs taken between October 25th and November 5th of this year. The late harvest and the accompanying lower sun angles have been wonderful for photography. Enjoy the photo below (which screams "the bounty of harvest" to us) and find

Harvest, weeks of October 18 and 25: Hurry up and wait.

In the last two weeks, we've harvested another 99 tons, mostly of Grenache (37 tons), Mourvedre (29 tons) and Roussanne (14 tons). The weather has alternated between sunny and warm and cool and cloudy, with a little rain on the 23rd and a little more this past weekend.

Winemaker Neil Collins discusses progress on the 2010 vintage

Early this week, after some light rainfall over the weekend, we had a couple of days where we couldn't pick, but used the time to press off fermenting lots in the cellar and make some space. National Sales Manager Tommy Oldre caught up with Winemaker Neil Collins to

Getting close to harvesting Mourvedre!

We got a new camera at the vineyard today and I decided to take it out into the vineyard to break it in. It struck me how much progress the vineyard has made in the last few weeks, particularly in the varieties like Mourvedre and Grenache that seemed a long

A video tour of the new addition to Tablas Creek

The construction of our new cellar, office and tasting room space is proceeding nicely. We've got floors, walls (or at least framing), and a roof over much of the new addition. It's gone up fast over the last month or so, and we're starting

Harvest, weeks of October 4 and 11: What else? More crazy in 2010.

In the past two weeks since my last harvest report, we've had our two largest-ever harvest days, three days that topped out near 110, two days of rain that topped out near 60 and a week-long pause in harvesting, and the resumption of beautiful weather that

Grapes of the Rhone Valley: Syrah

Syrah, also known as Shiraz in Australia, is one of the most noble grapes of the Rhône Valley, and by far the most widely planted Rhone variety in California. It is a key component in both our Grenache-based Cotes de Tablas and Mourvedre-based Esprit de Beaucastel blends (typically

A first in-depth look at the 2009 Tablas Creek red wines

2009 was a challenging vintage, with very low yields from three years of drought and some significant April frosts. It was further complicated by a record-breaking October rainstorm that dropped a foot of rain on the vineyard and stopped harvest for three weeks while everything dried out. The net

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