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Vineyard

A collection of 405 posts

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 20-35% of

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

Notes from the Cellar: Harvest 2010 Begins! (AKA Fruit and Football; It Must be Fall)

By Chelsea Magnusson Experts claim that the (official) first day of autumn is September 22nd. Typically, I hate to disagree with expert opinion, but my first day of fall was yesterday. Supporting evidence includes the fact that Sundays and Mondays are now spent watching football, but the primary reason for

An updated weather assessment for the 2010 vintage

In late July, I wrote the blog post Refreshingly... brisk? An assessment of the unusual weather of summer 2010 in which I looked at the accumulated weather data for the vintage up to that point, and found that it fell most similar to the 1999 and 2005 vintages, both cool

We welcome two new grapes to Tablas Creek: Clairette and Terret Noir

Regular followers of Tablas Creek will know that we selected and imported our eight principal Rhone varieties (Roussanne, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah, Counoise) at the very beginning of our history, in 1989, before we'd even started laying out the vineyard. It was cuttings from these

Grapes of the Rhone Valley: Marsanne

Marsanne produces wines with distinctive melon and mineral flavors, rich mouthfeel, and a characteristic nuttiness with age. When blended, its relative restraint and minerality complement more aromatic varietals like Viognier. And in its ancestral home of Hermitage and in other cool climates, Marsanne can make some of the world'

Veraison 2010!

And... (drumroll please) we have veraison for 2010. It's actually less far behind than we were expecting, more like one week than the two weeks we were late at flowering. [As points of comparison, I wrote about veraison on July 27, 2007, July 30, 2008 and July 24,

Refreshingly... brisk? An assessment of the unusual weather of summer 2010

This morning, looking at the fog outside, I changed my plans to take my kids swimming at my parents' house and went to the zoo instead. Even now, at 1:13pm, although the fog has burned off and it's sunny, the temperature at my house in downtown

Grapes of the Rhone Valley: Viognier

Viognier (pronounced VEE-ohn-yay) is the most-planted white Rhone varietal in the United States, and produces wines with intense aromatics of peaches, apricots, and violets, as well as viscosity and lushness on the palate. At Tablas Creek, it takes the lead in our Cotes de Tablas Blanc, and has also played

Early Summer in the Vineyard

I got back this week from two weeks on the east coast, and the vineyard had grown so much in my time away that it was barely recognizable. The weather so far in June has been ideal: lots of days in the 80s, a few in the low 90s but