Establishing Deep Roots - Q&A with Vineyard Manager David Maduena

By Lauren Phelps

It was with great pleasure that I sat down with Vineyard Manager David Maduena to find out more about his 24-year career at Tablas Creek.  David is the longest-tenured member of our team, beginning as a part of our first crews working to establish the nursery and vineyard programs.  He's normally a man of few words, and it was a treat to find out more about him and to learn from him how Tablas Creek has changed in the almost quarter-century he has been here.

I found a filing cabinet full of old photos, still on slides.  This one is David circa 1994.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Durango City, Mexico and lived there until I was 15 years old. I came to Paso Robles when I was 15 and lived with my parents and siblings.

Can you tell me a little about how you started working at Tablas Creek?

I started working in the local vineyards all around the area- a week or two here and there. I helped plant and add irrigation lines to Mount Mourvedre in 1992. I began working permanently here in 1993 when we started building the quonset huts and expanded the nursery project. [Editor's note: we published an archive of photos from those early years, one of which shows David manning a backhoe for an early irrigation trench, late last year.]

What is your general vineyard management philosophy?

I always look to do the best for the vineyard. I deal with a lot of different things in the vineyard from gopher control to managing a crew of between 7 and 30 people and I just try to keep everything in control.

What do you think about organic farming?

I think organic is good, it helps to not put a lot of chemicals in the soil- everything is natural so you’re not killing the soil, you’re helping it. And it’s better for the crew, they don’t have to wear special protective gear to keep them safe.

What’s your biggest challenge as a Vineyard Manager?

The biggest challenge is to take care of everything out there. I have to deal with a lot of different people and it’s not easy to find a good way to talk to the crew. Some supervisors are mean to the workers but that’s not good for them and not good for us.

How do you spend your days off?

I like to play soccer or basketball with my kids. I have 7 kids and they are always playing something. I spend most of my time off with my family.

If you weren’t growing wine grapes for a living, what would you be doing?

I went to school to learn to become an electrician or I’d like to do welding. I think that would be fun and I have some skill for those things.

What do you like about working at Tablas Creek?

I like working with nice people that’s the main thing. I feel comfortable here.

How do you define success?

Success to me is to make progress in life. You start from the bottom, like I did. I was just a normal worker, now I’ve been here so many years that they trust me and made me a Vineyard Manager and now I have more responsibility and take care of the whole place. I think that is success.

We celebrate a respite in what's been a warm, dry February... with rainbows

Yesterday evening, a decent storm passed through the Paso Robles area.  It hadn't been forecast to drop too much rain (we were expecting a half-inch or so) but it turned out to be better than that.  Between 6pm and midnight, we received just over 1.5" of rain, and with the wind whipping up gusts to 37mph it felt like winter for the first time in a few weeks.

Until yesterday, February has been dry and (after a cool first few days) warm.  Beginning February 7th, we saw 10 consecutive days that reached at least the 70's, three times climbing into the 80's.  Only three times in that stretch did the nighttime lows drop below 40°, and our last freezing night was February 5th.  It's still early, but it really felt like spring, and as we watched the local almond trees burst into bloom, we were dreading the arrival of an exceptionally early budbreak.  The wildflowers were starting to bloom in the vineyard.

What's more, despite the promise of our ongoing El Nino conditions, we had dropped behind even a normal year, with the Paso Robles Airport at 90% of average winter-to-date precipitation. February is typically very wet here in Paso Robles: our second-rainiest month, just after January.  At Tablas Creek, an average February provides about 5 inches of rain for us, or about 20% of our annual total.  So, to have the first half of the month provide zero precipitation is a significant missed opportunity, and was particularly disappointing after January (6.65", or 124% of normal) got us off to a good start.

This morning, when we arrived at the vineyard, we were greeted by a remarkable double rainbow.  Two views:

and

Looking forward, we have a week of dry weather forecast before we're supposed to return to a wet weather pattern for the end of the month.  What we really need is a few of the big soakings that used to be the norm in winters here, where we might see 3-5 inches of rain in a storm.  It's not that we've received -- at least not before the last few weeks -- consistently fair weather. That was the problem the last two winters: a persistent ridge of high pressure that deflected storm activity well to the north.  December 2015 saw 12 days with measurable rainfall (albeit for a total of just 1.39"), while January 2016 added a whopping 20 days with some rain.  But many of these storms seemed to just miss us, with areas to the north (and even a few times, areas to the south) getting drenched, while we saw more modest totals.

Last night's storm was one of the first all winter to exceed its predicted totals.  May it not be the last.

Tasting the Wines in the Spring 2016 VINsider Club Shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club.  In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club.  In others, the club gets a first look at a wine that may see a later national release.  About 6 weeks before the club shipments will be sent out, we open them all to write the tasting and production notes that will be included in the club shipments.  In many cases, this tasting is our first post-bottling introduction to wines that we'll come to know intimately in coming weeks and months.  In some cases (like this time) where the shipments contain wines that aren't yet even bottled (they will be week after next) it's a chance to get to know wines that are newly finished.  Over recent years, I've given followers of the blog a first look at these notes.

These shipments include wines from the 2013, 2014, and 2015 vintages.  It was interesting to taste these three vintages, all of which we think were very strong, together, and to get a sense of how they compare.  My quick thoughts, after the tasting, are that 2013 is a classically-styled, old-world vintage, on the brooding side, with substantial tannins, more about balance than exuberance.  It should be exceptionally ageworthy, and I think that most of the reds will benefit from a little time in bottle.  2014 is a blockbuster vintage, with wines that are luscious and forward, yet not lacking in tannin and structure.  Both our 2014 Cotes de Tablas and 2014 Cotes de Tablas Blanc are a part of this shipment, and I think they're the best examples of these wines we've ever made.  I can't wait to get the 2014 Esprits into bottle.  Finally, 2015 (we only tasted two wines) seems to be explosively vibrant, with intense fruit and a sweet-tart character that should be immediately appealing. 

I'll start with the classic mixed shipment, and then move on to the red-only and white-only shipments, noting which wines will be included in each.  I was joined for the tasting by Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi.  The wines:

2014 COTES DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: The Cotes de Tablas Blanc is our showcase for the floral, lush fruit of Viognier (39%), grounded by the texture, acidity, and citrus of Grenache Blanc (29%), with Marsanne (20%) providing gentle minerality and Roussanne (12%) providing structure. The components were blended in April 2015, aged briefly in stainless steel, and bottled in June.
• Tasting Notes: Stunning in its intensity for this bottling: honey and nectarine and spicy passion fruit on the nose, with something cooler, like wet stones.  In the mouth, it's rich and tangy, with ripe pineapple fruit lifted by orange blossom and deepened with a briny sea-spray element.  The finish is rich, long, and clean, with a creamy expansiveness that reminded me of lemon meringue.  Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 1250 cases

2011 ESPRIT DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: Although 2011’s spring frosts largely spared the notoriously late-sprouting Roussanne, yields were still low and these low yields combined with the unusually cool growing season to produce structured Roussanne with good acidity, suitable for aging. Knowing this, we held back a good chunk of this wine, and are releasing it to club members now. 64% Roussanne, 26% Grenache Blanc, and 10% Picpoul Blanc, aged for a year in foudre and then for 3 more years in bottle.
• Tasting Notes: The three years in bottle have brought depth and additional substance to the classic Roussanne flavors and aromatics, and like many Roussanne-based wines it has become more aromatic with age. It's showing candied orange peel, ginger, creme brulee and lychee fruit on the nose. The mouth is savory, with green plum, grilled bread, honeydew rind, lots of mineral, and a hint of nutty oak on the long, stony  finish.  When it was released, I called it "a fascinating combination of rich and very dry". That's more true than ever now.  Drink now or continue aging for another decade.
• Production: 2480 cases

2015 PATELIN DE TABLAS ROSÉ

• Production Notes: Our fourth vintage of the Provencal-style dry rosé that we base on Grenache and source primarily from other vineyards with our grapevines in the ground. Always heavy on Grenache (68% this year), the wine also includes additions of zesty, vibrant Counoise (13%), rich, floral Mourvedre (11%) and for the first time, a little spicy Syrah (8%). Most of the Grenache and all the Syrah were picked for the rosé program and direct pressed upon arrival at the winery, with the balance bled off after a few hours on the skins.  It is just a shade darker than our 2014, but still pale, fresh, and clean.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty light peach color.  On the nose, explosive aromatics of nectarine, wild strawberries, grapefruit pith, and jasmine.  The mouth is rich but vibrant, with flavors of rubired grapefruit, plum, mineral, spice and rose petals.  The acids are bracing on the finish, and the wine is really long.  I can't wait to get this in front of people.  Drink now and over the next year.
• Production: 2150 cases

2014 COTES DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: The Cotes de Tablas is our chance to let Grenache shine, as it does in most Chateauneuf du Pape blends. The luscious 2014 vintage led to us using a closer percentage of Grenache (44%) and Syrah (36%) than normal, to keep Grenache's generosity and fruitiness from tilting over into sappiness.  Additions of Counoise (12%) and Mourvedre (8%) added a savory earthiness to the wine, which was blended in June 2015 and aged in foudre until its bottling in February 2016.
• Tasting Notes: Shows a deep, spicy nose for a Grenache-based wine (of course, there's a lot of Syrah in here): new leather and blackcurrant and licorice and a sweet spiciness like a clove-studded orange, all held in check by a minerality that Chelsea called "rock quarry".  The mouth is generous with chocolate-covered cherry and a minty, juniper note.  It reminded me of the best grape jelly you could ever imagine.  Beautiful chalky tannins clean things up at the end, and the finish is long, with licorice, mint, and chalky mineral notes.  Drink now and over the next decade or more.
• Production: 1600 cases

2013 TANNAT

• Production Notes: Our twelfth bottling of this traditional varietal from South-West France, known principally in the Pyrenees foothills appellation of Madiran, but originally native to the Basque region. Tannat typically has intense fruit, spice, and tannins that produce wines capable of long aging.  While we often blend ours with Cabernet Sauvignon, in this vintage we bottled the Cabernet separately and the wine is 100% Tannat.  We aged it in neutral demi-muids for nearly 2 years before bottling it in July 2015. 
• Tasting Notes: On the nose, dark, savory and winey, with baker's chocolate and an iron-like bloodiness that reminded me of marinating meat with rosemary and soy.  The mouth is lusher than the nose suggests, with dark chocolate flavors, brambly black fruit, and a creamy texture.  The iron-like minerality came back out on the long finish, which also showed Tannat's signature tannins and smoky character.  A wine to watch evolve over decades.
• Production: 720 cases

2013 PANOPLIE

• Production Notes: As always, Panoplie is selected from lots chosen in the cellar for their richness, concentration and balance, always giving pride of place to Mourvedre's rich meatiness and firm structure. Each lot was fermented individually before being selected, blended and moved to foudre to age in July 2014.  The wine was bottled in August 2015 and has been aged in bottle in our cellars since then.  The blend is 75% Mourvèdre, 15% Grenache and 10% Syrah.
• Tasting Notes: A nose that manages to be both brooding and inviting, with notes of pine forest and aged balsamic and cassis and meat drippings.  The mouth is luscious, with red plum, black licorice, leather, cocoa powder and cigar box flavors.  The finish is long, with big tannins enlivened by a minty lift.  A wine to wait on if you possibly can, at least in the short term, but one that should have two decades of life, easily.
• Production: 670 cases

There were two additional wines (joining the Cotes de Tablas Blanc and Esprit de Tablas Blanc) in the white-only shipment:

2015 VERMENTINO

• Production Notes: Our fourteenth bottling of this traditional Mediterranean varietal, known principally in Sardinia, Corsica, and Northern Italy. It is also grown in the Mediterranean parts of France (particularly Côtes de Provence) where it is known as Rolle. The Vermentino grape produces wines that are bright, clean, and crisp, with distinctive citrus character and refreshing acidity. To emphasize this freshness, we ferment and age Vermentino in stainless steel, and bottle it in screwcap. Normally a generous producer, our yields in 2015 were down by nearly 50%.
• Tasting Notes: A classic Vermentino nose of white grapefruit, citrus leaf, and crushed rock, but then surprisingly generous and mouth-filling, like lemon-lime soda, with a briny sea spray minerality and a long, clean, luscious finish.  Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 575 cases.

2014 PATELIN DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: Patelin is French slang for "neighborhood" and the Patelin de Tablas Blanc is our white Rhone-style blend sourced from our many great neighborhood Rhone vineyards. We base the wine on the richness and acidity of Grenache Blanc (49%), with Viognier (31%) providing lush stone fruit and floral notes, and Roussanne (12%) and Marsanne (8%) adding minerality and texture.  The wine is fermented entirely in stainless steel and then bottled young (in May 2015) to preserve its freshness.
• Tasting Notes: The nose is very polished, with toasted marshmallow and lemongrass, honeydew, orange zest and preserved lemon.  In the mouth, the wine is luscious, with caramel apple and rose water flavors, and a little Grenache Blanc tannin that maintains order on the long, aromatic finish.  Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 3000 cases

Three additional reds joined the Cotes de Tablas, Panoplie, and Tannat in the red-only shipment:

2013 FULL CIRCLE

• Production Notes: 2013 is the fourth vintage of our Full Circle Pinot Noir, grown on the small vineyard outside Robert Haas's family home in Templeton, in the cool (for Paso) Templeton Gap AVA. Its name reflects his career: from a start introducing America to the greatness of Burgundy, through decades focusing on grapes from the Rhone, he's now growing Pinot at home. The grapes were fermented in one-ton microfermenters, punched down twice daily by hand. After pressing, the wine was moved into year-old Marcel Cadet 60-gallon barrels, for a hint of oak.  The wine stayed on its lees, stirred occasionally, for a year and a half before being blended and bottled in April 2015.
• Tasting Notes: A classically Pinot nose of sarsaparilla, nutmeg, milk chocolate and black cherry.  In the mouth the wine is beautifully fresh and medium-bodied, with cherry cola flavors and a touch of sweet oak on the finish.  Really pretty, and (for us) a validation that we can make classic-styled Pinot Noir here in Paso Robles.  Drink now and over the next decade.
• Production: 310 cases

2014 PATELIN DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: Patelin is French slang for "neighborhood" and the Patelin de Tablas is our red Rhone-style blend sourced from our many great neighborhood Rhone vineyards. We base the wine on the spicy savoriness of Syrah (55%), with Grenache (29%) providing juiciness and freshness, and Mourvedre (10%) and Counoise (6%) earth and structure. Fermented in a mix of upright oak fermenters and stainless steel tanks and aged in wooden uprights, it was bottled in July 2015 and aged in bottle to round into its structure.
• Tasting Notes: A dark, Syrah-driven nose that is creamy, meaty, minerally, and a little bit wild.  A little blue fruit lurks underneath and comes out with air.  The mouth shows both Grenache and Syrah's influence, with black plum, boysenberry, chalky minerality and nice powdered sugar tannins that come out on the finish. Decant if you're drinking now, or age for up to a decade for secondary and tertiary flavors of meat and earth.
• Production: 3500 cases

2013 SYRAH

• Production Notes: Our first varietal bottling of Syrah since 2010.  Despite the warm 2013 vintage, the vintage proceeded largely without extreme heat spikes, and cool-loving Syrah showed both power and freshness in our blending trials.  So, we kept aside one foudre (assembled from a mix of newer and older small barrels) of our most expressive Syrah, and aged it there for a year before bottling in May of 2015.
• Tasting notes: A dark, spicy brambly campfire wildness that is absolutely characteristic of Syrah.  There is also a marinade wineyness that seems to be 2013's signature in our red wines. The palate is vibrant with blackberry and briary spice, big tannins and a little sweet oak.  I don't think this will hit its peak for a decade or more, but it should be pretty amazing once it does. Decant in advance if drinking soon, or wait up to two decades.
• Production: 550 cases

If you're a wine club member, you should make your reservation for our shipment tasting party, where we open all the wines in the most recent club shipment for VINsiders to try.  This spring's party will be on Sunday, April 10th.  If you're not a wine club member, and you've read all this way, then why not join up, while there's still a chance to get this spring shipment?  Details and how to join are at tablascreek.com/wine_club/vinsider_club

Congratulations to Jason Haas, 2015 Paso Robles Wine Industry Person of the Year

By Robert Haas

In 1989 The Perrin family and the Haas family bought a 120 acre pasture in Adelaida that was to become Tablas Creek Vineyard, named for the eponymous creek that flowed through the property.  I took over the management.

In 2002 my son Jason, fresh from a stint in the east coast’s tech world, arrived in Paso Robles and started working at Tablas Creek, focusing initially on our marketing and increasingly on our management.  Although Jason has taken over the day-to-day operations here, I'm still working because I enjoy our working together.  It's fun.  His leadership here and his accomplishments at the vineyard and in the community delight me.

Last Friday, the Paso Robles wine community came together at the Paso Wine Country Alliance's annual Winter Gala to honor Jason for “outstanding contributions toward the success of the Paso Robles wine industry”.  He was named the 2015 Paso Robles Wine Industry Person of the Year:

Jason, with Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance Executive Director Jennifer Porter 

Jason with State Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian (left) and State Senator Bill Monning (right) and the decree passed by the Californa legislature

A healthy Tablas Creek contingent gathered to help celebrate

It was fun to hear the wine community recognize his accomplishments in the fourteen years he has been working here. They have been significant!

• He started this blog back in 2005 and has been its principal author for a decade now. It has been a finalist for “Best Winery Blog” seven of the last eight years and won in 2008 and 2011.   The blog helped establish us as leaders in the wine community and himself as a source for media with thoughts worth seeking out.
• His writing on the blog has led to invitations to contribute pieces on Paso Robles and Rhone varieties to Wine Business Monthly, Wines & Vines, Wine Industry Network, and Zester Daily, and to regular appearances on radio and television.
• He established the Paso Robles Rhone Rangers chapter in 2007 and led it for the next several years. In that period, it grew from 15 members to 50 members and helped establish Paso Robles as the epicenter of California’s Rhone movement.
• He has represented Paso Robles, Rhone grape varieties, and Tablas Creek to industry groups including the American Wine Society, the AIWF, the Unified Symposium, and the Society of Wine Educators, and has been a regular guest lecturer to classes and student groups at Cal Poly and Fresno State, spreading the word about our region and our winery to the next generation of wine consumers and wine professionals.
• He has helped build Tablas Creek's standing in the community, working with and supporting deserving causes such as must! charities, Festival Mozaic, the Foundation for the Performing Arts Center, and the Paderewski Festival, as well as volunteering as a youth basketball and baseball coach in Templeton.
• He has volunteered diligently as a board member of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, of Rhône Rangers, and of Family Winemakers of California. It is easy to critique the actions of an organization, but much more significant to jump in and help it achieve its goals.
• He has had, I feel, a particularly significant impact on the Rhone Rangers. When he joined the board in 2004, it was an organization whose sole footprint was one tasting a year in San Francisco.  He pushed the group to expand its Bay Area event to include a greater educational component and a winemaker dinner and auction.  He also led the charge to add additional events, including an annual Los Angeles tasting and “road show” visits to Seattle, Chicago, New York, and Washington DC.  The category of California Rhones has made amazing strides in the last decade, in part thanks to the work of Jason and the rest of the Rhone Rangers leadership.
• Jason’s support of Tablas Creek’s role in the creation of and advocacy for the 11 new Paso Robles AVAs helped distill a complicated story into a comprehensible message of why this is a good thing for the region.

I'm proud of him.   He has made a difference.

A Valentine's Day truffle recipe... and the perfect wine to drink with them

By Suphada Rom

Prior to working at Tablas Creek, I spent three years working at a small French bistro that was adjacent to a chocolate shop, which was also conveniently co-owned by the owners of the restaurant (pommes frites…check! chocolates…check!). I was in heaven learning not only about our menu, but about the chocolates we produced. As I reflect on my time there, I realized wine and chocolate have really similar foundations. Not unlike a vineyard, cacao farms can vary from plot to plot, and more so from one country to the next. I tasted single origin chocolates from all over South America, each bringing their own exciting aromas and nuances. With both quality wine and chocolate, there is an incredible sense of terroir that is truly amazing to taste. A certain minerality you find in a bottle of wine could be considered equivalent to the nutty nuance you find in a bar of chocolate. You can only imagine our excitement when we decided to pair the two together, creating what may be one of the best wine and dessert pairings I’ve ever had.

Chocolate truffles with our 2003 Sacrérouge.

When I first played around with the idea of pairing wine with chocolate, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Chocolate is such a powerful product to work with, given its rich quality and often overly sweet connotation. Some of my favorite chocolate desserts are the most simple, but made with the highest quality ingredients. This truffle recipe by King Arthur Flour (from my home state of Vermont!) requires only chocolate and heavy cream to make the centers, leaving you free to coat them with just about anything you want. The chocolate ganache is smooth and rich, but not cloyingly sweet. Adding nuts or some sort of a crunchy exterior will also break up the overall smooth texture, however there were no complaints about the traditional chocolate dipped ones! Here are some photos from our truffle efforts:

Toppings in preparation of coating every square (okay, maybe round) inch of each truffle

After about 2 truffles, your hands may look like this. I spy some Rebecca Haas jewelry beneath the layer of chocolate.

A dipped truffle that we managed to not eat, however due to lack of self control, many truffles were harmed in the making of this blog post.

The wine that we chose to pair the truffles with was our Vin de Paille Sacrérouge. Sacrérouge is a small production dessert wine made from 100% Mourvèdre. It is produced through the meticulous vin de paille process, where the grapes are hand harvested at peak ripeness (but not superripe like a late harvest) and laid out on beds of straw to dehydrate. During this process the grapes concentrate and gather in complexity and character. The results, after a slow oak fermentation, is a sweet wine that brings richness with incredible balance. The 2003 Sacrérouge (which we chose for this pairing) was our first-ever bottling of this dessert wine. We were really thrilled with how this wine was drinking. It had incredibly deep notes of cherry and cassis, with a beautiful mineral quality on the finish. The youthful quality of this wine is what really had everyone talking -- this wine was still vibrant after over a decade in bottle. A bite of truffle and a sip of wine later, we were all relatively speechless. It was a fantastic pairing. That said, these truffles would be excellent with any vintage of our Sacrérouge, young or old. 

The finished product with our 2003 Sacrérouge, and yes, this picture perfect set up lasted all of 10 seconds before we dove in!

If you have a Sacrérouge in your cellar to enjoy with the truffles you'll be whipping up it’s sure to be a pairing you’ll never forget. If you recreate this dessert (or create a TCV wine and food pairing of your own!), be sure to let us know on any of our social media handles- Facebook or Twitter or Instagram - or just leave us a comment here! When you do, tag @tablascreek and use #EatDrinkTablas

A few other resources:

• The recipe for the truffles can be found here
• If you’d like to learn more about the Vin de Paille method, check out this blog post written by Jason Haas entitled Vin de Paille: A Dessert Wine Making Technique for the Obsessed

Why the future may look a lot like the crazy 2015 vintage

I was honored to be invited to give the keynote address at today's Vintage Report Conference here in Paso Robles.

The topic was to provide an overview of the 2015 vintage, with technical discussions to follow on the vintage's impact on vine physiology, grapevine maturation, and berry/wine composition.  I thought that my keynote address might be interesting to followers of the blog, and have shared it below.  I have added a few concluding thoughts at the end. 

I am honored to have been asked to deliver this keynote address.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of you that the 2015 vintage was unusual, or that most of what made it unusual presented challenges to viticulture throughout much of California. Nor am I likely to surprise any of you who experienced it with the roller-coaster of emotions that we saw out at Tablas Creek.  This roller-coaster, in order:

• Hope from a great beginning to the rain in the early winter of 2014-2015
• Disillusionment as an exceptionally dry late winter left us at about 50% of normal rainfall (again)
• Relief to have avoided frost despite an early budbreak
• Worry about cool, windy weather during May’s flowering (which resulted in widespread shatter)
• Uncertainty after alternating significantly warmer-than-normal and cooler-than-normal months
• Shock upon receiving multiple inches of rain in July
• Disbelief in seeing just how light crops were (much lower than we’d projected)
• And back to hope at the end with our late-season grapes coming in much closer to normal yields, and overall wine quality looking strong.

You’ll get details of all these pieces from the many speakers here today, but I wanted to illustrate in two ways just how unusual the year was. 

• First, the rainfall by month that we saw last winter out at Tablas Creek. We finished at about half of normal rainfall, but it was anything but consistent.  It’s hard to have a good rainfall winter in California if it doesn’t rain in January and March:

 

• Second, the ricochets between significantly warmer than average and significantly cooler than average months during the growing season. Only June was within 10% of normal heat accumulation, and some months like May, August, and October were way off the charts.

 

And yet, with all this uncertainty as a background, it’s looking like 2015 produced some remarkably compelling wines. 

The lessons from 2015 may well prove to be important ones moving forward.  The scientific consensus seems to be settling around the likelihood that droughts and extreme weather in our area are going to be more common in coming years thanks to global warming. The lessons we might learn from 2015, as unusual as it looks in historical context, may well need to be applied with increasing frequency in the future.

I look forward to hearing the conclusions that some of the state’s leading viticulture researchers will present today.  Thank you all for coming.

A few conclusions

It was interesting to me, in the research I did to put together this talk, the degree to which a consensus really seems to be building among the California wine community on the effects of climate change.  Droughts are likely to become more frequent and more severe.  The incidence of very warm stretches will increase, but so too will the threats from springtime frosts, as warmer March weather encourages earlier budbreak.  The climate of the California's Central Coast will increasingly resemble, in rainfall and temperature, that of Southern California.  And the increased frequency and intensity of tropical storms will make unusual summer rain events like the one we received last July more common.

A salient conclusion that Dr. Thibaut Scholasch, the organizer of the conference, made in his introduction was that the viticultural impacts we are likely to face more often given climate change (excessive drought, excessive heat) are more easily addressed by changes in viticulture and winemaking, as opposed to the opposite threats (excessive moisture, excessive cool) that put the success of a vintage largely outside of the control of a grower or winemaker.

Finally, I love that this high profile technical event, which takes place in four places around the world, has chosen Paso Robles as one of its four locations (joining Napa, Bordeaux, and Narbonne).