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Winery & Winemaking

A collection of 227 posts

Foudres, Demi Muids, Puncheons, and Wood Fermenters: The Appeal of Large Oak

Foudre- (Food’r)- French term for a large cask of indefinite size1 At Tablas Creek we follow the Châteauneuf-du-Pape tradition of maturing our red wines in 1200 gallon (4500 liter) French oak foudres rather than in the more familiar 60 gallon (225 liter) oak barrels. These smaller barrels – known

Blending, blending, blending... and an eventual look at the 2010 whites!

Over the last month, we've been narrowing down our options for what we'll make for estate white wines in the 2010 vintage. This isn't really practical before March, as too many lots are still finishing up their fermentations, but beginning in mid-March most everything

Chronicling a Year in the Southern Rhone

In January I had the pleasure of sitting in on Marc Perrin's presentation of the wines of Beaucastel, Domaines Perrin, and La Vieille Ferme to the Vineyard Brands sales team at their annual sales meeting. (I followed with a presentation of Tablas Creek). The wines were beautiful, and

Creating a new wine: Patelin de Tablas

A difficult economy brings problems, but it also brings opportunities. Over the last few years, we have been fortunate to see our sales continue to grow, thanks to the wonderful loyalty of our customers, an unprecedented run of great press, and lots of hard work by the wholesalers, restaurants, and

A post-harvest round table discussion with Tablas Creek's winemakers

Late last week, with harvest concluded and the winemaking team rested up after a long, grueling harvest, national sales manager Tommy Oldre caught up with them to talk about their 2010 harvest experience. In the video, you'll see winemakers Neil Collins, Ryan Hebert, and Chelsea Franchi each give

Harvest 2010 Recap and Assessment: Low Sugars, Good Yields and Great Flavors

Harvest 2010 is in the barn. Done. Finally. It was a late harvest all-around, about 3 weeks late at the beginning and 2 weeks at the end. We began harvest with a little Vermentino on September 16th, but didn't really get into significant picking until October. The 47

Winemaker Ryan Hebert discusses the end of the 2010 Harvest

With the arrival this past weekend of our last significant Mourvedre block, harvest 2010 is more or less in the books. We have been going through the vineyard this week and cleaning up odd bits here and there in a leisurely fashion, but we can at last be confident we&

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

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