2010 Vin de Paille Quintessence (375 ml)

Production Notes

The 2010 Tablas Creek Vineyard Vin de Paille “Quintessence” is Tablas Creek’s reserve bottling of this traditional Mediterranean technique for producing dessert wines. Ripe grape bunches are carefully laid down on straw-covered benches in our greenhouses, and allowed to dehydrate in the sun. When the grapes reach the desired concentration, we press them and move the juice to oak barrels for fermentation. The juice ferments until it reaches an alcohol level where the sweetness of the juice is balanced by the acids and mineral characteristics of the wine itself.

The grapes for our Vin de Paille were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.

In 2010, we dried Roussanne on straw in our greenhouses. We then pressed the grapes and fermented the wine in three barrels.  Two of these barrels were high enough quality that we aged them an extra six months in our cellar and bottled it as Vin de Paille “Quintessence”.

The 2010 vintage saw healthy rainfall after three years of drought. The ample early-season groundwater and a lack of spring frosts produced a good fruit set. A very cool summer delayed ripening by roughly three weeks, with harvest not beginning until mid-September and still less than half complete in mid-October. Warm, sunny weather between mid-October and mid-November allowed the later-ripening varieties to reach full maturity. The long hangtime and cool temperatures combined to produce fruit with intense flavors at low alcohol levels.

We harvested the Roussanne for our Vin de Paille in one day on October 29th.  It spent roughly a month on straw in our greenhouses, and was brought into the cellar for pressing on November 30th. The wine, after pressing, was aged in two new French oak barrels for 14 months before being bottled in January of 2012.

Tasting Notes

The 2010 Vin de Paille “Quintessence” has a beautiful nose of maple syrup, caramel and ripe apricots, with remarkably concentrated flavors of honey, spice and pear, good balancing acidity and an exceptionally long finish. We expect it to drink well for decades.

Reviews

• 95 points; "very impressive energy for such a rich, sweet, even decadent wine": Tanzer's IWC (Nov. 2012)
• 94 points; "compelling ... voluptuous": Wine Advocate (Aug. 2012)
• 97 points; "one of the most profound dessert wines I’ve tasted from California": The Rhone Report (Jun. 2012)

[...more recent Tablas Creek press]

Food Pairings

• Crème Brulée
• Dried Fruit
• Tarte Tatin
• Aged Blue Cheeses

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