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Winery & Winemaking

A collection of 221 issues

Grapes of the Rhone Valley: Terret Noir

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here at Tablas Creek who thinks that one of the most fun things I get to do is to work with new grapes. In some cases, these grapes are ones that are pretty well known in France, but

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost: Q&A with Cellar Master Brad Ely

By Suphada Rom Brad Ely, a native of the Central Coast, has found his way back to the area after several years of travel and cellar experience, taking him from the far reaches of Australia and New Zealand all the way to Washington state and the Rhone Valley. I sat

Move Along... Nothing To See Here... Just our First New Wine in Seven Years

Last week, Francois Perrin joined me, my dad, Neil, Chelsea, Craig, Brad and Jordan around the blending table as we took our first comprehensive look at the reds from 2016. Coming into the blending, we'd only looked in detail at the whites, which were super. But reds often

Harvest 2016 Recap: Solid Yields, High Quality and a Furious End to our Earliest-Ever Vintage

And boom, after a flurry of activity last week, we're done with harvest. Last to arrive, on Saturday, was a final pick of Grenache, but the final week saw 72.8 tons from a whopping six different grapes: Tannat, Counoise, Mourvedre, Roussanne, and our small bock of Cabernet,

Harvest 2016 at its midpoint: things heat up, literally and figuratively, in Paso Robles

On Friday, Neil came to me and said that according to their estimates, they'd reached the midpoint of harvest that day. And looking at the numbers, that seems right to me. We're done with Viognier, Vermentino, and Marsanne. We're nearly done with Syrah and

A Cool Stretch Lets Us Ease into Harvest 2016; Yields Seem Solid

The cellar is full of bins of fruit. Our white press is running all day pressing newly harvested Viognier, Grenache Blanc, Clairette Blanche, and Vermentino, and our red press has been working on the first loads of Syrah. Everything smells yeasty and spicy, with the tang of CO2 in the

White blending gives us our first detailed look into the scarce, concentrated 2015 vintage

This week, my brother Danny flew out to join me, my dad, Neil, Chelsea, and Tyler around the blending table as we took our first comprehensive look at the whites from 2015. As usual, we started our blending week Monday morning by tasting, component by component, through what we had

En Primeur: a Tablas Creek tradition since 2003

By Lauren Phelps Today, we were joined by many of our most enthusiastic wine club members for our annual futures tasting, which provides the first opportunity for anyone outside the cellar to taste (from barrel) our newest vintage of Esprit de Tablas and Panoplie. Our Cellar, Newly Decorated for the

In the spirit of a winemaker- Q & A with Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi

Editor's Note: This is the second interview in a series that we hope will help readers get to know the key people at Tablas Creek a little better. If you have questions for Chelsea, please leave them in the comments. By: Lauren Phelps I recently sat down with

Harvest 2015 Recap: Mourvedre and Roussanne (somewhat) to the Rescue

The last two days, we picked the last batches of Roussanne off of our estate. This makes in one case six passes through a single block, harvesting what's ripe, leaving the rest to ripen a bit more, and repeating every week or two. In a year like 2015,