2005 Côtes de Tablas

Production Notes

The Tablas Creek Vineyard Côtes de Tablas is a blend of four estate-grown Rhône varietals: Grenache, Syrah, Counoise and Mourvèdre. Like most wines of the Southern Rhône, it is a blend of varietals, featuring the fruitiness of Grenache balanced by the spice and structure of Syrah, with meaty, earthy notes from Mourvèdre and Counoise.

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

The 2005 vintage was one of nature’s lucky breaks, with excellent quality and higher-than-normal yields. The wet winter of ’04–’05 gave the grapevines ample groundwater, and a warm period in March got the vines off to an early May flowering. The summer was uniformly sunny but relatively cool, and harvest began (relatively late for us) in the 3rd week of September. The grapes spent nearly a month longer than normal on the vine, and the resulting wines were intensely mineral, with good structure and powerful aromatics. Our first lots of Syrah came in on September 29th, followed by Grenache on October 5th, Mourvèdre on October 11th, and (unusually for us, our last varietal harvested) Counoise on October 28th.

All varietals were fermented in stainless steel with the use of native yeasts: the Syrah in open-top fermenters, punched down manually, and the other varietals in closed fermenters with pump-over aeration. After pressing, the wines were racked, blended, aged for a year in 1200-gallon French oak foudres, and then bottled in April 2007. The wines underwent only a light filtration before bottling.

Tasting Notes

The 2005 Côtes de Tablas has an intensely Grenache nose of rare steak, pepper and blueberry. It is juicy and rich in the mouth, with ripe tannins and a finish laced with licorice.

Updated tasting notes from a September 2011 tasting can be found on the Tablas Creek blog.

Reviews

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Recipe Suggestions

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Food Pairings

  • Grilled steaks
  • Pastas with meat sauces
  • Rich beef stews
  • Spicy sausages
Cotes de Tablas

Not Available for Purchase

Blend

  • 43% Grenache
  • 24% Mourvèdre
  • 18% Syrah
  • 15% Counoise

Technical Notes

  • 14.8% Alcohol by Volume
  • 3500 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

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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 »