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Vineyard and Winemaking
Minimizing human intervention to maximize the expression of our terroir.
Vineyard
Tablas Creek’s limestone-rich 120-acre organic estate vineyard is located in the hills north and west of Paso Robles. The warm days and cool nights allow our vines to gracefully ripen the Rhône varietals we grow. Our viticulture practices emphasize dry farming and long-term vine health through cover cropping, mulching, and moderate crop levels. We farm organically, and received our organic certification in January 2003. More recently, we have incorporated many Biodynamic techniques across the vineyard, and converted 20 acres to complete Biodynamism, including our own mobile herd of sheep, alpacas and two guard donkeys, Fiona and Dottie (right). Our goal in our farming, as in our winemaking, is to minimize what we have to put on from the outside, and allow the maximum expression of character of place from this vineyard that we searched four years to find. [more about our Vineyard and Viticulture]
Nursery
Our on-site vinifera nurseries, rootstock fields and grafting and growing facilities were created to provide us with the Rhone varietals we have planted in our vineyards, but we have since 1996 made these high quality clones available for purchase by interested vineyards. Customers who wish to purchase Rhone varietal budwood and grafted vines using Tablas Creek vinifera material can do so exclusively through NovaVine Nursery of Sonoma, California, who produce grafted vines of consistent high quality using environmentally responsible farming practices. [more about the Tablas Creek Nursery]
Grapes
There are dozens of varietals grown in the Rhône Valley in France. 13 of these are approved in Châteauneuf du Pape, with another 8 approved in the Côtes du Rhône appellation. We chose to import the 9 chief varietals of the Southern Rhône for our Paso Robles estate vineyard: Mourvèdre, Syrah, Grenache, and Counoise for the reds, and Roussanne, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, and Picpoul for the whites. [more about our Grapes]
Winemaking
We believe that minimum human intervention in our winemaking process preserves the wine’s link to its place of origin. Winemaker Neil Collins, along with the Haas and Perrin families, look to keep our fingerprints off the young wines. At harvest, each vineyard block is hand-harvested selectively, and we typically make 2-4 passes through each vineyard block at harvest. All Tablas Creek wines are fermented using only native yeasts. White grapes are whole cluster pressed, and the juice is fermented in small and large French oak barrels, mostly neutral, and stainless steel. Red grapes are sorted and destemmed after harvest, and the juice and whole berries moved to stainless steel or 1500-gallon wooden upright fermenters. During fermentation, the must is pumped over, punched down or otherwise inundated twice a day. After fermentation, the red wines are pressed, then blended and aged for one year in 1200-gallon French oak foudres (right). As is traditional in Châteauneuf du Pape, we blend our Rhône varietals to produce wines that are more complex, better balanced, and richer than single varietal wines. [more about our Winemaking]
Upcoming Events
Celebrate Paso Robles Wine Festival with Tablas Creek
Join us for the Paso Robles Wine Community's biggest celebration! We'll pour Esprit de Beaucastel at Friday's Reserve Event and a range of new releases at Saturday's Grand Tasting. And all weekend we'll have special wines open at the winery and will be taking tours to visit our herd of sheep, alpacas and donkeys. Sunday 11am to 1:30pm enjoy Chef Jacob Lovejoy's small plates, free with a tasting. Details & more events »
Tablas Creek News
Featured Wine for May: 2011 Cotes de Tablas Blanc
In May, we're featuring our 2011 Cotes de Tablas Blanc at a 10% discount. In 2011, our Viognier crop was cut by 80% due to spring frost, leaving a tiny, intense yield of less than one-half a ton per acre. The resulting wine is rich and tropical, with stone fruits and honey, but at the same time firmly dry, with a very long, saline & mineral finish. Details »
On the Blog: When Terroir Was a Dirty Word
May 15, 2013
Take a look at the seven-line entry of Frank Schoonmaker, America’s foremost wine expert and author in 1964, about terroir. His association, rather than the "somewhereness" the wine exhibits, is more of a taste of dirt, neither elegant nor elevated: "somewhat unpleasant, common, persistent”. My, how things have changed. More »