2003 Panoplie in March 06 VINsider Shipment
The 2003 Panoplie is available exclusively to Tablas Creek Vineyard’s VINsider club members. One bottle was included in the March 2006 club shipment, with limited availability to reorder. In addition, VINsiders who reserved this wine as futures in December, 2003 received their wine in September 2004. We have more information on the VINsider wine club
In exceptional vintages, Tablas Creek Vineyard produces small quantities of Panoplie: a Mourvèdre-based cuvée from meticulously selected grapes, made in the model of Château de Beaucastel’s Hommage á Jacques Perrin. In 2003, only 230 cases were produced.
The 2003 vintage was tremendous: warm and sunny, with cool nights that prolonged the hangtime of the grapes and led to wines with excellent acidity. A relatively early flowering, combined with a warm but not overly hot summer produced unusually long hangtime, and grapes with concentrated flavors and a distinct minerality. Our first lots of Syrah came in on September 18th, followed by Grenache on September 25th, and Counoise and Mourvèdre both on October 8th. The beautiful fall weather allowed us to bring in fruit when it was at peak ripeness, and allow other blocks to continue to mature. The harvest continued through October, with the last lot of Mourvèdre safely in the cellar on October 29th.
The grapes for our Panoplie were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.
The grapes were fermented using native yeasts in open and closed stainless steel fermenters. After pressing, the wines were moved into barrel, blended, and aged in large-format French oak barrels before being bottled in April, 2005. Panoplie is unfined and unfiltered.
The Tablas Creek Vineyard Panoplie 2003 is a barrel selection of the most intense lots of Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah, and Counoise, all estate-grown varietals propagated from budwood cuttings from the Château de Beaucastel estate.
The 2003 Panoplie is a dense purple-red in color. It has a rich plum nose with nutmeg and clove notes. The complex voluptuous palate shows ripe berry fruit and is intense, layered, and elegant with a wonderfully long licorice and spice finish.
Updated tasting notes from a December 2012 vertical tasting can be found on the Tablas Creek blog.
Expected Maturity
2008–2025
Not Available for Purchase
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 »
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 »
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 »