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Winery & Winemaking

A collection of 225 posts

Another detour along the road to American organic wine

About three months ago, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) made a ruling that didn't get a lot of press, but is likely to produce a remarkable trifecta of negative results, discouraging organic viticulture and ensuring that the reputation of American organic wine remains dubious, all while putting

Tannat: the Perfect Grape for Paso Robles?

[Editor's Note May 2021: With the announcement of the 2017 Tannat as our featured wine for the second half of the month, we have updated this blog to include information about this wine.] Although we specialize in Rhône varietals, we continue to experiment with other grapes that we

Getting to know the newly-finalized 2010 red varietals and blends

This week, Francois Perrin made one of his semi-annual visits to Tablas Creek. We always like to see Francois after harvest; it gives us our first outside perspective on the most recent vintage, and gives us a chance to bounce the ideas we had during crush off of someone whose

Harvest 2011 Recap and Assessment: Yields Down 15% vs. Normal and Quality High

Harvest 2011 finished on November 9th with a flurry of activity, including at one point 62 different bins of grapes scattered around the winery and on the crushpad, waiting to be destemmed. My favorite part of the photo (blow it up to see it) is the bemused look on Ryan&

The sun sets on the 2011 Harvest, light in yields but intense in character

OK, I guess I didn't mean that literally, though that was the last two bins of our estate Mourvedre coming in from the vineyard under the setting sun and rising moon yesterday evening. But our last grapes are coming in today, both off our estate (where we'

Happy Halloween from the Tablas Creek harvest zombies!

This was such a fun photo staged by our cellar crew that we had to share. Bonus points for anyone who can describe how it was done!

A Day in the Life of a Limousin Oak Fermenter

By Robert Haas When you enter our new tasting room you can see our Séguin-Moreau 1600 gallon Limousin oak cuves in the background: We really love them. But they are much more than a mise en scène for our visitors. They are valuable because of their flexibility. With the flat

Harvest, Weeks of October 10th and 17th: Full Speed Ahead as Frosty Weather Looms

We've made an amazing amount of progress over the last couple of weeks. The conditions have been perfect, with an average high temperature of 83 (range 72-91) and an average low temperature of 50 (range 44-55). We've had ample sun every day. These conditions have meant

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

It's a Wonderful Day in the Patelin (and we have photos to prove it)

By Chelsea Magnusson A few months ago, my husband, Trevor, and I sat down to dinner in our backyard with a bottle of our new go-to wine: the Patelin de Tablas. I was so struck by the warmth and the casual feel exuding from the moment, I grabbed my camera