2000 Antithesis Chardonnay

Antithesis: The Beginning

After years of searching, Robert Haas (Vineyard Brands) and the Perrins (Château de Beaucastel) found the perfect site for their new estate in the steep and stony hills west of Paso Robles. Tablas Creek Vineyard was conceived with similar vine selections to the Beaucastel Domaine. Organic farming techniques in the vineyard allow our grapes to be the purest expression of the warm climate and the calcareous clay soils in which they grow. Fermenting with native yeasts and selective blending of the varietals, as practiced by Beaucastel for 150 years, allow the wine to best express its rich and elegant esthetic qualities. We have left no stone unturned in our effort to make Tablas Creek Vineyard Antithesis a forceful statement of its outstanding terroir.

Production Notes

Tablas Creek Vineyard was founded with the specific idea of producing red and white wines in the image of the southern Rhône Valley and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. We imported our own vine material to produce those wines. At the same time, we also imported the most highly regarded French chardonnay clone to fill a special request from a Sonoma winery. We planted 2.5 acres of the low vigor “La Vineuse” in 1997 to produce the requested quantity of bud wood. Of course, when you plant vines to produce cuttings, you also get grapes. In 2000 we had our first small crop from the terraced vineyard block in our chalky-clay soil in the west Paso Robles highlands. It is deliciously and intensely chardonnay. We thought it so classy that we decided to estate-bottle our non-Rhône “Antithesis” under our Tablas Creek Vineyard label. Antithesis is estate bottled from vines grown on the Tablas Creek Vineyard Estate, cultivated without the use of herbicides or systemic pesticides. Only hand hoeing, cover crops, mulch, scorching and mowing are used for weed control. Natural predatory insects, “Bordeaux Mixture” and sulfur control pests and fungi.

Antithesis Chardonnay

Not Available for Purchase

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  • 100% Chardonnay

Technical Notes

  • 14.2% alcohol by volume
  • 250 cases produced

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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 »