Tablas Creek Vineyard Blog

The challenges of running out of wine

We're not running out of wine.  Yet.  But, for the first time ever, I can see it looming. 

It's not a familiar position for me.  When we started, we made some mistakes in our marketing, the largest of which was neglecting to create a marketing plan.  We assumed that because we were associated with Chateau de Beaucastel, and we had confidence in our capabilities of making wine, our wines would sell out without us having to work at it.

Based on this assumption, we planted most of our vineyard fairly fast.  60 acres went into the ground between 1994 and 1997.  Another 20 acres went into the ground in 2000.  That meant that we grew from producing nothing in 1996 to about 4000 cases in the 1999 vintage to about 12,000 cases in the 2003 vintage.  Our marketing plan, such as it was, was to sell all this wine through wholesale without having to spend money to support the wines in the market through the traditional methods of market visits, wine festivals, distributor incentives, etc. 

We bottomed out in 2002, selling just 4000 cases wholesale while we watched inventory levels rise and knew that our production was growing rapidly.  Over the course of that year, we reinvented how we marketed Tablas Creek.  We opened our tasting room.  We launched our VINsider wine club.  And we started supporting the wines in the marketplace, visiting and working with dozens of distributors each year and participating in many more wine festivals around the country. 

And, little by little, we pulled ourselves out of the hole we'd dug.  Our total sales (wholesale and direct) rose to 5500 cases in 2003, 8000 in 2004, 11,000 in 2005, 15,000 in 2006 and 18,000 last year.  The growth was divided among the different outlets we had: tasting room, wine club, domestic wholesale and export.  Since we'd had the dubious luxury of having extra inventory of our wines from library vintages, we had lots of options for special features in our tasting room and could make selections for our wine club without having to worry that we were shorting our wholesalers of what they wanted.

Our production from 2004-2006 was a fairly consistent 16,000 cases per year, with 2004 a little below that and 2005 and 2006 a little above due to ample winter rainfall and favorable growing seasons.

Enter 2007.  The 2007 harvest was very light, and fooled us.  It followed a cold, dry winter and two years of higher-than-normal yields, and the result was a perfect formula for low production.   Our yields were less than 2.5 tons/acre, and we produced less than 13,500 cases of wine.  The wine is really good, very intense and focused (a little like 2002 was for us) but there's just not much of it.  And, the fact that we've worked through most of our back inventory in the past few years means that we're at the point that we're not going to have the wine to satisfy everyone who wants it.  With the natural growth of our wine club (we're netting about 500 new club members each year), the fact that our tasting room is up compared to last year, and the growth in demand for exports with the weak dollar, I don't see how we sell much less than 20,000 cases this year even with our moderate expectations for the domestic wholesale market in a challenging economy.  That's a lot more cases than we produced last year.

We're going to do what we can to stretch the 2006 vintage as long as we can, and release the 2008's (please, let yields be good!) a little earlier.  But, the simple fact is that we're having to make some difficult choices, particularly in whites (which were down more than reds, and which are released sooner).  Our fall 2008 wine club shipment will have 4 reds and only 2 whites for the first time ever.  We're going to hope that we can complete the fermentation of the 2008 Rosé in time to include it in our Spring '09 shipment with 2 whites and 3 reds.

I guess I should be happy about this.  Doesn't every business want to sell out of their product?  The simple solution of raising prices calls (and we will be doing that, slightly, with the next releases of our Cotes de Tablas and Cotes de Tablas Blanc).  But I have always felt that we make wines for people to drink and enjoy, not to be intimidated by because of their price or their scarcity.  And, I'm convinced that part of the reason for our success is that overall, the wines that we make provide excellent value for the people who buy them.  I'm not going to disrupt that.

But, I originally moved out here to be Director of Marketing.  How do you market when you don't have wine to sell?  What do I tell our National Sales Manager to do when any sales that he creates cause new headaches?  Or say to key restaurants or retailers who call and ask for a wine that we've sold out of except for what we've allocated to our wine club?  It will be a challenging year as we navigate this new situation of having to limit our sales to our current production and balance the demands from our different markets.

I don't yet know how this will play out.  We're going to be pulling back some of our wholesale market work, cutting down on wine festivals and letting some of our underperforming distributors slide in ways we wouldn't have tolerated in past years.  We'll protect our wine club for sure.  We aren't going to disappear from the wine scene; even wineries who are perpetually out of stock continue to show their faces and their wines periodically to maintain their fan base. 

But, I'm guessing I'll have many more opportunities to get better at telling people "sorry, we're out".  I guess that's what happens when a business grows up.

Winemaker Neil Collins Discusses Harvest 2007 with winerychannel.tv

If you haven't checked out winerychannel.tv yet, you should.  It's online television, dedicated to the world of wine.  Like many members of the new media, they're fans of what's going on in the Central Coast, and we welcomed them up here a month or so back for a discussion of the 2007 harvest.  Winemaker Neil Collins spent an afternoon with their crew walking them through what was going on in the cellar and talking about what 2007 was like for us.  Check it out (click on "The Source" Episode 26: Harvest Report when you get there).

End of 2007 Harvest!

With the completion of the "Mount Mourvedre" block behind the winery, we're officially done with the 2007 harvest.  Like each year, it's had its own challenges, this time at 65 days the longest extent between the beginning of harvest (August 27th) and the end of harvest (October 31st) that we've ever seen.  (By contrast, in 2006, harvest lasted 50 days.)

Our yields were down; the 252 tons of fruit that we brought in is down 20% from the 315 tons we saw in 2006 (or the 319 tons we saw in 2005).  At our normal conversion rates, we're looking at between 14,000 and 15,000 cases of wine in 2007.  Our field crew, led by Vineyard Manager David Maduena (center, with dark jacket and tan baseball cap) poses behind the last bin of Mourvedre:

The quality of the fruit looks tremendous.  Berry sizes are small, but skins are thick and we're seeing tremendous color extraction early in fermentation.  I hope that the California wine press recognizes that this year may be excellent for Paso Robles even though the early rain has been problematic in Napa and Sonoma.

Finally, I leave you with a good example of why you should be cautious leaving the winery camera in the hands of the winemakers.  Here's a shot they took of the last Mourvedre cluster of harvest, poised on the edge of the destemmer machine looking terrified.  Winery sense of humor...

Grenache Harvest Photos

As we'd hoped, the rain from the end of last week was followed by cool, sunny and breezy weather, and the half-inch of rain that we got didn't have any negative impact on the hanging fruit.  This week, we're bringing in the rest of the Grenache and getting a start on the Mourvedre.  The crystal clear, sunny morning yesterday allowed for some nice photos.  First, Grenache in a picking bin, waiting for destemming.  Note the very slight deflation of some of the berries, an important physiological sign that the fruit is ripe:

Next, a great shot of Neil Collins and Ryan Hebert (our Winemaker and Assistant Winemaker) pushing Grenache clusters through the destemming machine.  I love how this photo expresses the constant motion of harvest:

Finally, a nice semi-panoramic shot of Mourvedre hanging on the vines behind the winery (at the bottom of the hill we call "Mount Mourvedre") with the incredibly deep blue Paso Robles sky behind them.  Like all the photos on the site, click on the photo for a full-size rendition:

Harvest rain in Paso Robles

After several big harvest days this week (mostly Grenache, as well as the rest of the Syrah and the beginnings of the Mourvedre) we're taking a break for the first significant rain of the year to pass through.  As of Friday afternoon, we'd already received about 0.4" at the vineyard and it shows no signs of stopping.  A look out south from the winery this afternoon, with the wind whipping the olive trees and the clouds obscuring the ridgetops just a few hundred feet overhead:

The forecast for the weekend is good (sunny and warmer) and, as always the key is what it's like after the rain.  If the weather is dry and breezy, a moderate amount of rain is not a problem even during harvest.  It's when it stays still and humid that you worry.

And, of course, when the choice is to bring in fruit that you know isn't ripe, or to wait in the hope that the weather turns back around and you get it ripe later, you realize that you really don't have much choice.  So, fingers crossed.  At least we aren't getting the downpours that the North Coast (and even Monterey County) are forecast for over the next few days.

For those keeping track: we are approximately 60% through with harvest, and it looks like overall quality has been very high, with yields down an average of about 20%.

Harvest, Week of September 24th

The weather in Paso Robles warmed up last week, and we started harvesting in earnest.  We've brought in most of our Syrah, the first big chunk of Grenache, and are finishing up Grenache Blanc.  Viognier and Marsanne are in.  I'd estimate that last week, we brought in between 10% and 15% of our annual harvest, mostly Grenache and Syrah.  Happily, it looks like the production of our reds is not off nearly as much as our whites.  We're now estimating white yields down about 30%, but red yields down just 5% to 10%.  A photo from our front entrance, looking at the newly-harvested Syrah "C" vines:



This week, we're looking at more of the same weather, sunny and days in the 80s, with nights in the low 40s.  We're expecting most of our Grenache and our first significant blocks of Roussanne.

In the cellar, we're starting the assembly of our Rose by bleeding off some of our Grenache.  We've decided to make the Grenache component just a little bit lighter this year.  Each year, our Rose has gotten a little darker, and we feel it's time to back off just a little.  Below are two photos from the saignee of Grenache: on the left draining the juice from a tank harvested yesterday, and on the right spraying the juice into a new tank to ferment as rose.

Harvest, Weeks of September 10th and 17th

2007's harvest got off to an early start, driven by a dry winter and resulting low yields, and spurred by the warmest stretch of the summer in mid-August.  Since we've hit mid-September, though, it's cooled off here, with daytime highs in the 70s, marine layer in the mornings, and nights in the 40s. This has meant that after our first rush of Viognier and Chardonnay we've had a leisurely time of it.  Over the past two weeks, we did make our first pickings of Grenache Blanc and Syrah, and a few stray parcels of Roussanne and Vermentino, but the bulk (75%) of the harvest is still out on the vines, like this head-pruned Tannat vine below:

We did get a little early-season rain last Friday, but less than five-hundredths of an inch, not enough to do anything more than wash a little dust off the vines.  The strange squall was the culmination of an odd cut-off low pressure system that stalled off the coast of Santa Barbara, but wasn't warm enough to pull in much moisture from the Pacific.  We weren't particularly worried (Ryan Hebert, our Assistant Winemaker and Vineyard Manager was actually hoping for a quarter-inch or so of rain to keep the dust down) but we're looking forward to the scheduled warm, dry weather of this week.  It looks like we'll get our first lot of Grenache in tomorrow.  One more photo, before I sign off: a couple of bins of Roussanne from last week, on the back of the tractor on what we call the "new hill".

Syrah/Roussanne Harvest and Co-Fermentation

Each year, one of our favorite Syrah lots in the cellar is one that we co-ferment with Roussanne.  We typically blend about 10% Roussanne into Syrah, de-stem the two grapes, and then ferment them together in an open-top tank.  The lushness of the mid-palate of Roussanne helps round out the Syrah (which can be fairly angular on its own).

This year, we encountered an unexpected problem, as the Roussanne refused to be de-stemmed.  We've never had a problem with this before, but with particularly tight clusters in 2007 and the overall small berry sizes, it seems that the berries just won't give up their grips on the stems.  So, we're having to press the Roussanne and add it to the fermenting Syrah as juice.  A close-up of the Roussanne is below:

We've consistently had better luck co-fermenting Syrah with Roussanne than we have with Viognier.  Although it's commonly done in the Northern Rhone (and has been copied by California producers) we've never found it to do the trick.  For us, Syrah is very aromatic and long, with its only flaw being a bit hollow on the mid-palate when it's young.  Viognier further emphasizes the aromatic character, but if anything the resulting wine is more notable (perhaps because of the explosive aromatics) for its relatively underdeveloped mid-palate.

Oh, well.  We're still learning.  Every year brings something we haven't seen before.  This year, it's Roussanne that refuses to be de-stemmed.  Next year, who knows!

Harvest 2007 Begins!

The 2007 harvest is underway.  As I've written about this year, we've had a relatively unusual year for weather, with a very cold, dry winter delaying the beginning of budbreak and flowering, and then a remarkably moderate summer, with few days over 100 and no extended cold spells.  It's been alternating weather patterns, with a week at a time of warm, seasonable weather (days in the mid-90s, nights in the upper 50s) and then a cooler week (days in the 80s, nights in the upper 40s to lower 50s).  These relatively moderate conditions have combined with the drought to encourage many producers here to look forward to 2007 as a potentially top vintage.  We'll see.

So far, we've begun the harvest with Viognier on August 27th.  Bob Haas, at left, holds up one of the first Viognier clusters outside the winery.  Also the week of August 27th, we did a cherry pick of the Roussanne from the top on one hill, and began the harvest of the Chardonnay for our "Antithesis" Chardonnay.  Yields, as others in the region are reporting, have been down.  Our Chardonnay crop was a little more than half what we saw in 2006, but intensity has been excellent.

The week of September 3rd, we brought in the rest of our Viognier, as well as a little Grenache Blanc and the first big chunk of our Syrah (all of our "A" and "D" clones).   The Syrah "C" clone, which we believe is our highest quality clone, is still out in the vineyard.  The photo below is of a cluster ripening outside the winery.

With the lower yields, we've decided not to make any Vin de Paille white dessert wines this year.  It's just too big a cost in production, and we want to make sure to protect the dry wines which are our core focus.