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Winery & Winemaking

A collection of 221 issues

Blending the 2018 White Wines: Our First Look at the Strikingly Mineral 2018 Vintage

We spent most of last week around our conference table, making sense of the white wines from the recently concluded 2018 vintage. As usual, we started our blending week Tuesday morning by tasting, component by component, through each of the 32 lots we’d harvested this past year. Yeah, I

From Behind a Bar to Behind the Bottle: Q&A with Amanda Weaver, Cellar Assistant

By Linnea Frazier As is tradition here at Tablas, I like to track down various members of our family and torture them with a peppering of questions so as to create a better understanding of who we are behind the Tablas Creek label. My next victim in this series is

Harvest 2018 Recap: A Vintage Concentrated in both Time and Character

Last Thursday, we brought in the last lingering blocks of Mourvedre, Grenache, and Counoise. It wasn't as though there was a threat of imminent rain, or heat, or anything else. No, it was just that the grapes were ready. That made it a fitting end to the 2018

Harvest 2018 at the 80% line: It looks like we won't see November grapes, after all

As often happens in early October, the bigger picture of harvest comes into focus and you have a chance to check which of your early harvest assumptions are turning out to be true, and which false. This year, we're receiving validation of most of our important assumptions. Quality

Harvest 2018 at its mid-point: moderate to good yields and outstanding quality under ideal weather conditions

After two intense weeks, the cellar is pretty much full and we're in a bit of a lull. The early grapes (think Viognier, Vermentino, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Syrah and Pinot Noir) are done or largely done, and while we've made a start with the mid-season grapes

Yeah, that slow start to the 2018 harvest? That's history.

I walked into our lab today and Chelsea turned to me and said, "so, do you remember last week when I said I was bored"? Yeah, not so much any more. As often happens, even in years like this one that start slowly, there comes a day where

Harvest 2018 Begins with a Whisper

A little more than a month ago, I predicted that the 2018 harvest would begin sometime in the first half of September. I was almost right. We actually got our first fruit -- a couple of tons of Viognier -- on August 31st. About five tons of Viognier came in

Blending the 2017 reds confirms that we're looking at a vintage for the ages

Last week, after three weeks of work, we finally got a chance to taste all 12 red wines we'll be making from the 2017 vintage. It was a treat. Esprit and Panoplie were rich, lush, and intense, but with good structure and no sense of heaviness. The Mourvedre,

Petit Manseng: A Royal French Heritage and a New Life in the New World

Mostly, we grow grapes from the Rhone Valley. But there are exceptions. Vermentino, although found in areas near the Rhone (think Cotes de Provence, or Languedoc-Roussillon) isn't allowed in Cotes du Rhone or Chateauneuf du Pape, but has done great here at Tablas Creek. So too has Tannat,

Life as a Harvest Cellar Intern: To Shower or Not to Shower?

[Editor's note: With this post, we are happy to welcome Linnea Frazier to the Tablas Creek blog. Linnea was one of our cellar interns for this years harvest, fresh from Portland’s Lewis and Clark College. This was her first cellar experience. This won't be the