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Weather & Climate

A collection of 292 posts

Why Paso Robles will make California's best wines in 2011

Last Thursday, as I was driving down to a couple of events in Los Angeles, I received an email (clearly addressed to a larger distribution list) from Tim Fish of the Wine Spectator. Tim was soliciting photos of inundated vineyards, rotted grape clusters or other signs of damage from the

Harvest, Weeks of September 26th and October 3rd: Things Ramp Up and then Pause for Rain

After a slow start to harvest, the accumulation of warm days produced a rush at the end of September. Between September 26th and October 4th, we harvested 112 tons of fruit, including most of what will go into our Patelin Blanc (mostly Viognier and Grenache Blanc) and perhaps half of

Harvest, Weeks of September 12th and 19th: A Quiet Beginning

As is typically the case, the 2011 harvest began quietly, with a few grapes trickling in over the first week or so before picking up steam. The first grapes of the season arrived on Thursday, September 15th: about three tons of mostly Viognier (there was a little Roussanne mixed in)

Checking in on Chester, Vermont

As many of you know, Tablas Creek's history begins in Vermont. In the small town of Chester, Vineyard Brands grew up in an old barn, finished bit by bit into modern offices yet still even at the end with file cabinets fit in between cow stanchions. It was

Tablas Creek 101: Why We Are Where We Are

By Robert Haas In the early 1970’s Jean-Pierre Perrin accompanied me when I was visiting my then Napa Valley suppliers of Vineyard Brands: Freemark Abbey, Chappellet, Clos du Val and Phelps. We took a little tour of the valley and he remarked that it was extraordinary that, in a

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 are late

Photo of the day: A green sea of vines under a blue sky

Early June, when I wrote about how cold our spring had been, seems like a lot longer ago than one month. When I returned from a two-week trip to the Rhone (during which it was consistently in the 90s here in Paso Robles) the vineyard had grown so much that

Tablas Creek Vintage Reports 1997-2010

We're working on a new Web site, to debut later this summer. (A screenshot of the home page of the new Web site is to the right. Click on it to get a bigger view. Yes, we're excited.) One of the things that we're

Flowering (Finally)

It's no secret that this spring has been cold. Our average high temperature since April first is just 69.7 degrees. We've broken 80 just six times, and not recently: our last day over 80 was May 12th. We haven't hit 90 yet. Those

Frost Damage and Recovery

We're two weeks removed from the frosts of April 7-9, which look like they'll play a major role in defining the 2011 vintage. With temperatures down to 24 degrees on consecutive nights, we sustained near 100% damage in the Grenache, Grenache Blanc, Viognier and Marsanne (the