2011 Grenache Blanc

Production Notes

The 2011 Tablas Creek Vineyard Grenache Blanc is Tablas Creek’s tenth bottling of its 100% Grenache Blanc. The Grenache Blanc grape, a little-known but widely-planted Southern Rhone varietal, produces wines with full body, good acidity, and flavors of citrus, anise, and green apple.

We use most of our Grenache Blanc in our Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc and Cotes de Tablas Blanc each year. However, we have been so pleased by the flavors and intensity of the Grenache Blanc that we try to reserve a small quantity of Grenache Blanc for a single-varietal bottling each year.

The grapes for our 2011 Grenache Blanc were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.

The 2011 vintage was our second consecutive winter with healthy rainfall, but yields were dramatically reduced by two nights of frost on April 8th and 9th.  Despite the low crop loads, ripening was slow due to a very cool summer, and harvest roughly three weeks later than normal, beginning in mid-September and not concluding until mid-November.  Warm, sunny weather during harvest allowed the later-ripening varieties to reach full maturity. The long hangtime and low yields combined to produce fruit with notable richness balanced by higher than usual acidity, all at low alcohol levels. Our Grenache Blanc blocks were harvested between September 29th and October 20th.

The Grenache Blanc grapes were whole cluster pressed, and fermented using native yeasts in stainless steel tanks and one two-year-old foudre. The Grenache Blanc lots were assembled in May 2012, and bottled in July 2012. The wines underwent only a light cold stabilization before bottling.

Tasting Notes

The 2011 Grenache Blanc shows an intensely creamy, mineral nose that also includes sweeter flavors like pear and anise.  In the mouth its initial impression of sweet fruit (strawberry, quince and green apple) is followed by vibrant acids, then turning sweeter again on the finish, suggesting preserved lemon and anise  and leaving a lingering impression of saline minerality. Drink now and for the next two to three years.

Reviews

[...more recent Tablas Creek press]

Recipe Suggestions

[...more recipes]

Food Pairings

  • Spicy Asian preparations of fish and chicken
  • Shrimp Scampi
  • Sushi
  • Mussels Mariniere
Grenache Blanc

Sold Out

Blend

  • 100% Grenache Blanc

Technical Notes

  • 13.3% Alcohol by Volume
  • 120 Cases Produced

Downloads

Share
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 »