Our Most Memorable Wines of 2020

One of the things I appreciate most about the team that I work with at Tablas Creek is the wide range of their interests and experiences. If you don't work at a winery, you might expect that those of us who do spend most of their time drinking their own wines, but in my experience, that's far from the case. Most people who find a career in wine do so because they find it fascinating, and that interest doesn't go away just because they've landed at a particular winery, even a winery that they love. And most people who work at wineries look at exploring other wines as an enjoyable form of continuing education.

This year, I asked our key people to share a wine that stuck with them from all the ones they'd tried in 2020. I wasn't sure what to expect, given the challenges that the year presented to all of us. Would it be the last wine that people enjoyed with friends before they learned the meaning of "social distancing"? A bottle that they enjoyed with a family unit? Something that reminded them of someone they lost? Some people couldn't find a wine that they wanted to remember, in a year they wanted to forget. And I get that. But there were plenty of reminders too that wine does serve to bring us together, and is still one of the best proxies for (and reminders of) travel that we have available to us. 

Here's everyone's submission, in their own words and only very lightly edited, in alphabetical order (except mine, which is at the end):

Janelle Bartholomew, Wine Club Assistant
I couldn’t choose just one memorable wine this year, so I included a couple that stuck out for me. As I’m writing this, I realize both of these wines stick out likely because it was my first time ever to enjoy these varietals – which makes anything just a bit more special. The first wine that stuck with me is Meyer-Fonne Vieilles Vignes Pinot Blanc 2018.  This wine hails from Alsace, a region that never seems to disappoint! Lovely white peach and honey resonate on the palate and lingers with a long elegant finish. My only qualm…. I wish I’d bought more!  The second wine that immediately comes to mind is the 2019 (Tablas Creek) Bourboulenc. I was lucky enough to secure myself a single bottle this year, and enjoyed it with Thanksgiving dinner.  What I loved most about the Bourboulenc was the texture of this wine, it has more body than I expected but still maintained a great amount of acidity that makes it quite lively.  When I first tasted it, I thought “if Roussanne and Grenache Blanc had a baby, this would be it!” Such a treat… and I can’t wait for next year’s release!

Charlie Chester, Senior Assistant Tasting Room Manager
My most memorable wine of this year was just a few weeks ago. Saturday December 5th, the day before my fathers 80th birthday. My girlfriend Amber and I drove down to his house in Solvang, my sister and her husband, Matt drove up from Carpinteria and we cooked dinner for dad and his wife Diane.  It was bound to be a great time that deserved a special wine. My sister, Kacey, was in charge of the main dish. She grilled a pork rib roast and it was delicious.  I knew what was on the menu and I thought that the 2015 Esprit de Tablas would be nice with it so I got my hands on a magnum to compliment both the meal and the celebration. I think a magnum always boosts the level of celebration a bit and we were celebrating a monumental occasion and needed a bottle of size and quality to match.  I brought a gold marker to let everyone sign and wish the dad a happy birthday. It was truly a great time with great company!

As you can see (right) I also got dad our new Tablas Creek Patagonia windbreaker and my sister's husband is a firefighter in Santa Barbara and styled him out with an SBFD hat and t-shirt.

Austin Collins, Cellar Assistant
Much of 2020 is a blur. Part of me still feels like it's March but, as I stare at the flickering lights on our Christmas tree I know that's not true. Another reminder is the upcoming new year and, for the first time I think most of us are celebrating the end of a year, not just the promise of a new one. In retrospect, it's statistically true that most of us drank a bit more this year! But, much like the year, a lot of the wines opened blend together in my head. So, two that I can remember are the 2017 Garance from Chateau de Bois Brincon (100% Pineau d'Aunis). Insane white pepper on the nose and a lovely rustic mouth with bright purple fruits. Secondly, a 2018 Gruner Veltliner from Hum Hofer. While not the best Gruner in the world I had it with my wife on our first wedding anniversary at the lovely eatery Bell's in Los Alamos. It also comes in a unique package: a 1000 mL bright green bottle topped with a crown cap. Here's to a better year ahead! Cheers!

Neil Collins, Executive Winemaker
So many bottles have crossed our table through these trying times, it is hard to narrow it down. We opened a bottle of Ojai Vineyards Sans Soufre. On the table with a group of much more expensive wines, Sans Soufre was head and shoulders the wine of the night.

As is tradition we tasted many great wines at the harvest lunch table, for me one of the stand out wines was the Lone Madrone 2001 Il Toyon Nebbiolo. Christmas morning opening presents, fire in the grate a bottle of Albert Boxler Riesling from Brand, a stunning bottle. Lucky we are!

Ian Consoli, Media and Marketing
In SLO County in 2020 I think we had one week where we could eat in a restaurant. I’m exaggerating of course, but when the opportunity arose following previous shutdowns what restaurant do you think I chose to go to with my best wine drinking friends? Ember. Obviously. We took two bottles that both paired mind blowingly well with Chef Brian’s creations. A 2014 Chateau du Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape with a Duck Ragu and a 2016 Stephane Ogier Mon Village Côte-Rôtie with the filet. To be sitting inside a restaurant experiencing pairings that had me melting into my chair took me all the way back to 2019.

Darren Delmore, National Sales Manager
My white wine of the year is Tablas Creek's 2014 Esprit de Tablas Blanc. It's not quite a tradition yet, but this will be a third Christmas Eve that I make Daniel Boulud's Onion Soup and follow his recommended pairing of Roussanne. When you taste the dense, slick, rooty, herbed broth and melted gruyere and salty crouton mixed in, you see why a low acid and equally rich viscous white like the Esprit Blanc is the ideal companion. 2014 was such a powerful vintage for Roussanne that I'm saving a couple bottles for the ten year mark. 

My red wine of the year is The Other Right 2019 "Love Potion" Shiraz McLaren Vale Australia. Sulfite free Shiraz (the label says it's "Shiraz Juice") from a coastal site in a warm, drought affected vintage. The alcohol is moderate and the wine is full of power and energy - truly living wine. The whole clusters are fully integrated, likely aged in an old puncheon, and made with nearly zero electricity. I learned of the winemakers Alex and Galit on the excellent podcast Real Wine People out of Australia (very much worth a binge listening). Alex is a wine scientist at the Australian Wine Research Institute, and is jokingly the only wine scientist in the world to make natural wine. Plus who doesn't need a little Love Potion in a year like 2020?

Chelsea Franchi, Senior Assistant Winemaker

Most years, the most memorable wine for me is the bottle that has been opened to mark a special occasion, whatever that may be.  Granted, for special occasions, we typically pull out something that’s special to us! Domaine Tempier has been the go-to for my husband and me for the decade we’ve been married.  Back in 2013 (photo above) we had the excellent fortune to go on one of the Tablas Creek cruises. One of the days on the cruise, we spent an afternoon visiting the domaine and fell even deeper in love with them. Many an anniversary has been marked with a bottle of red (or sometimes rosé!) from this winery. 

August of this year, we welcomed the arrival of our daughter, Bohdi, which meant I spent a good deal of this year abstaining. The night we brought Bo home, my mom came over to cook us dinner and then left us to enjoy our first meal at home as a newly minted family of three (amazing, right?!).  Since my mom made some ridiculously beautiful rib eyes, it was only fitting that we open a bottle of red that could stand up to them.  We had a bottle of Pour Lulu (Lulu is the matriarch of Domaine Tempier, who passed away this October at 102) in our stacks and it was decided that a bottle that was made in homage to a strong and beloved woman was the perfect way to honor the arrival of our new strong, beloved little girl.  It needed a few hours of decanting, but when those tight, muscular wings started to open up, it was an utter delight and a perfect accompaniment (right) to one of the most exciting nights of our lives.

Barbara Haas, Co-Founder and Partner
I had a fun experience the other day with a wine I hadn’t tasted in at least two years. I had prepared a nice braised chicken (with onions, garlic, herbs, and tomatoes), and I went downstairs to look for an appropriate wine. My guests were two old friends who refused to give me any guidance – even as to white or red. That was MY job, they said. They have had many bottles of Tablas here, particularly over this past year, so I wanted to offer them something different. But it didn’t seem fair to submit an old Burgundy to the acidity of the tomatoes in the dish. As I was scanning the wine rack, I noticed a 2016 Julienas. Most Beaujolais should be drunk young, I know, but this was a “cru” and so I hoped it was still in good form.

It was lovely! Clean and pure and very Beaujolais, and so different from our Rhone-style wines. The very specific and unique taste reminded me how fun it is to vary the wines one drinks, and how silly not to when one has the chance. The experience is like trying different kinds of foods, or listening to different styles of music. It wakes the senses, which in turn wakes the brain, and gives delight.

I vow to add more variety to my wine-drinking in 2021. I always have the comfort of knowing I have a good selection of Tablas wines, and I believe that tasting the other wines in the cellar will give me a deeper appreciation of what we make and how it fits in with its colleagues.

Pam Horton, Assistant Controller
There are two wines that come to mind when I think about 2020. First, is the Tablas Creek Vineyard 2019 Bourboulenc. I have to say that I was intrigued by the name as I had never heard of this grape before. What a wonderful wine! I know that I wasn’t the only one who loved it, because it was sold out in no time. I will be looking forward to the next release. My second favorite wine is from another Paso Robles winery, Tackitt Family Vineyard’s 2018 Willie Pete White. It is a really nice light Sauvignon Blanc which was wonderful to drink during the summer. Tackitt has two lines of wine, their Tackitt Family Vineyard and their EOD Cellars. Willie Pete White is part of the EOD Cellars line and all of the proceeds from the wine sold are donated to the EOD Warrior Foundation. So for me it’s a win-win as I’m purchasing a wine I love and also supporting a great cause.

Ray King, Tasting Room
I have a few wines that stood out and provided fun relief in 2020.

All of the wines I picked were all a part of a meal, or in preparation for a meal. I truly love when great wines come together with great cuisine.

1) 2016 Domaine de La Pirolette, Saint Amour, Le Carjot. This Gamay noir I picked up while in France in 2019 and it was delicious . I served this with Ratatouille Gratin and grilled tri-tip in my backyard.

2) Hot summer evenings, while grilling, I would enjoy a slightly chilled 2018 Tablas Creek Counoise. While eating the dinner I grilled, usually a Ribeye served with Humboldt Fog cheese on top, I would enjoy the 2017 Tablas Creek Tannat. This combo made for great hot summer evenings.

3) Hot summer days, enjoying a cocktail in the afternoon. Aperol Spritz made with 2016 Caudrina Romano Dogliotti “La Selvatica”. This sparkling Asti is sweet and only 7% alcohol. This wine brought a nice, and new, twist on a classic summer cocktail. 

4) 2018 Tablas Creek Marsanne. I drank this wine and used it in the cooking of my Grilled Chicken, Red Bell Pepper, Fettuccine Alfredo. The Marsanne added a nice kick of acid to this lovely, and rich, dish.

Misty Lies, Tasting Room Team Lead
When it comes down to picking my favorite bottle of wine for the year it will actually be a toss up for three bottles all shared between friends at an afternoon bbq. Before the world went crazy we had the pleasure of traveling to Melbourne Australia to visit  a friend I hadn’t seen in 33 years and new ones that were met along the way because of him. We had a great bbq one afternoon and did some sharing of wines. I brought down a bottle of our 2010 Tannat that went up against a 2001 Howard Park Cabernet Sauvignon as well as a 2015 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz. All three were fun wines and everyone was happy to finally try the Tannat I have been telling them about for a few years now. During the year with all the ups and downs, I have come back to this afternoon and appreciated every minute of that day. Wines have a way of making meals a little bit more special and as always are best shared around a table of good friends.

John Morris, Tasting Room Manager
My favorite wine of 2020?  I haven’t enjoyed it yet, but I’ll let you know on New Year’s Eve! I can’t let it go unmentioned that I’ve had the unique opportunity to taste the singular, spectacular 2017 Esprit de Tablas Blanc most days this year.  This wine has gotten wide and much-deserved praise, and special attention in our blog published recently. It really is a knockout. And the 2017 Esprit de Tablas (red) is pretty special in its own right, perhaps my favorite vintage yet.  We’re super lucky to taste these wines on a regular basis. But as for my yet-to-be most delicious wine of 2020, I plan to head down to 15C in Templeton and ask for the best Champagne under $100, pop it 30 seconds after I walk in the door, raise a toast, and say good-bye to this most difficult year. Here’s to 2021!

Rumyn Purewal, Tasting Room Team Lead
It is hard to believe that this year started out like many others. And it started with my favorite wine of the year. I went to dinner with my fellow pals, also Tablas Creek family, Leslie and Ian, at local eatery Heirloom. We got the food to go and had a picnic in the Adelaide with one of those pairings that takes you to a magical place. With all locally grown and sourced food prepared by amazing people and chefs we paired the meal with a Portuguese wine recommended by Darren Delmore, a Humus Vinho Regional Lisboa. A natural wine made with indigenous Portuguese grapes. It was an incredible experience that stuck with me throughout the year. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Years. Cheers! 

Troy Tucker, Tasting Room
So I have 3 wines that stood out to me this year the most.

The first was the 2017 Thacher Cinsaut. A very unique and balanced wine full of character! A nerdy wine to say the least.

The second was the 2017 La Encantada Pinot Noir from Decroux/TH Estate. The vineyard really really makes this wine. Very expressive of terroir and captures the delicacy and complexity of Pinot Noir. I could go on and on about this wine!

And third is none other than the 2012 Esprit de Tablas Rouge (pictured right). Not to toot our own horns too much but, wow! So soft, so powerful, so many layers of clean vigorous personality. After 40 minutes in a decanter, it opened and gave one of the cleanest softest drinking wines I've had from Paso in a while! Paired amazing with the ribeye from McPhee's too!

Me
My mom is building a new house. As a part of that construction, earlier this summer we had to move a wine fridge that was inconveniently positioned in her garage right where a door needed to be cut. So, Meghan, the boys and I spent a few hours one afternoon in June emptying that wine fridge, moving the wines that were there into different storage, and identifying some bottles that were ready to open. One that I "rescued" was a bottle made by Jacques d'Angerville, the Burgundy proprietor who was my dad's closest friend in the region that made his reputation as an importer.

The wines from Domaine Marquis d'Angerville always speak to the elegant side of Pinot Noir. The bottle we opened was a Volnay Caillerets from 1979, reputed as a good but not great vintage, but the wine was sublime, with minerality and tension, crunchy red fruit even at age 40+, and the lovely loamy earth character I find so distinctive in mature Burgundy. It turned the meal of a simple roast chicken into one of the highlights of our dining year. In a year marked by losses and absences, I felt my dad's presence strongly that night. Wines have the ability to preserve a conjunction of place, time, and people. The Volnay evoked all that, while also being a testament to my dad's vision and foresight, and a lasting legacy to Jacques's genius, nearly two decades after his death. 

A few concluding thoughts:
As you might expect, this was an eclectic list. Some wines are Tablas Creek, but most are not. Many were older, which says that for all the challenges of storing and being patient with wines, the rewards can be marvelous. But the thing that stood out most for me was the extent to which wines help mark and commemorate milestones our lives, or give regular moments additional depth and meaning. I have high hopes for 2021. May your food and wine experiences be memorable, and may we all find more to celebrate next year.

The Esprit de Tablas Blanc is having a moment

I know, you're supposed to love all your children equally. But it's an open secret to the people I work with that year in and year out, my favorite wine that we make is our Esprit de Tablas Blanc. That's not an indictment of any of our other wines. And it's not even that I open more bottles of Esprit Blanc than I do anything else (that honor goes this year to our Vermentino). But I feel like the Esprit Blanc is a wine that year after year we can stand up against the best examples of rich, textured whites made anywhere in the world, from any number of different grapes, and have it shine.

So, it's pretty cool that in this end-of-year holiday season the Esprit Blanc (both 2017 and 2018 vintages) has been getting some serious love from writers. I don't usually write much about the press we receive here on the blog, but I thought it was worth highlighting some of the honors it's received in the last few weeks. Roughly in the order in which they were released:

2017 Esprit Blanc in Wine Enthusiast's "Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2020"
There is a visceral assumption in America that white wines (or at least dry white wines) should be drunk young. This may be true for many white grapes, but there is a long list of exceptions. Still, Wine Enthusiast deserves serious kudos for including so many whites in this year's Top 100 Cellar Selections list: 20 dry whites in all, not counting five sparkling wines and two sweet whites. Those selections are drawn from grapes you would expect (Riesling, Semillon, and Chardonnay, from multiple regions) as well as those you might not (Gruner-Veltliner, Albarino, and Garagnega). And it's great to see the 2017 Esprit de Tablas Blanc bringing Roussanne and Rhone-style to that party. This summer, we opened and tasted every vintage of our Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc and Esprit de Tablas Blanc for our annual summer vertical tasting, and the longevity of the wines really stood out. In my notes from the tasting, I shared that the list of favorites spanned nearly two decades:

I asked everyone around the table to pick four favorites, and the wines that got multiple votes were 2001 (3), 2006 (3), 2009 (3), 2013 (2), and 2017 (5). But there were wonderful vintages that didn't get "favorite" votes too. The wines do change and evolve, and you should do your best to explore if you prefer your Esprit Blancs older, younger, or somewhere in the middle. But across the board, we thought that they were great showcases for the texture, richness, structure, spice and minerality we think this property imbues in our white wines.

Rhone-style whites can age well, as a rule, but do so a little differently than many of the whites that are famously ageworthy. Grapes like Riesling or Chablis-style Chardonnay age based on their acidity, with texture playing a secondary role. Rhone whites, particularly Roussanne, age based on their texture, with acidity almost irrelevant. The 2017 Esprit Blanc is intensely Roussanne in character, with density, structure, and texture galore, and flavors of honey and mineral that we expect to deepen into caramel and nuts over time.

2018 Esprit Blanc in Wine & Spirits "Top 100 Wines of 2020"
Wine & Spirits Magazine does their Top 100 a little differently than most. In addition to a list of wines, they publish a list of Top 100 Wineries. We were proud to be a part of this year's list. And in their list of wines (which I can't find online anywhere, though there's a link to the issue in which it appears) they don't rank them. Instead, they choose the best wines from various categories throughout the year. That ensures that instead of a list with a dozen Napa Cabernets, or white Burgundies, or German Rieslings represented, a broad range of types of wines and regions of origin is represented.

We were excited to see one of our wines make the list for the second year in a row. Last year it was the 2016 Esprit de Tablas. This year, it was the 2018 Esprit de Tablas Blanc honored as "Best California White Blend". As I find generally true of Wine & Spirits' reviews, Patrick Comiskey's tasting note is almost lyrical:

Tablas Creek's top white has been roussanne-dominant for several vintages now, and they've learned how to capture the variety's elegant fleshiness without letting it get blowsy, propping it up with higher-acid whites, like grenache blanc, picpoul, clairette, and picardan. This wine smells of apple pulp and honey at first go, giving up little but seductive texture. On the second day open, the wine becomes grand, the weight of roussanne comfortable and powerful, with a lemony, crisp apple contour.

94-95 point Reviews for 2018 Esprit Blanc from Vinous, BevX, Owen Bargreen, and Blue Lifestyle
Sometimes a wine will really resonate with one reviewer, but not so much with others. It's been noteworthy to see the consistency of the reviews that the 2018 Esprit Blanc has gotten. The 93 from Wine & Spirits Magazine (a famously conservative grader) was good enough to get it into their Top 100 wines of the year, and the other recent scores the wine has gotten have been a point or two higher. Each reviewer pulls something different out of the wine, but the consistent mid-90s scores that the wine has received the last couple of vintages feels like a small but significant step up from what we've seen before. I won't bother repeating the different notes, but if you're curious, they're all linked from the 2018 Esprit Blanc's page on our website.

2017 Esprit Blanc in Bloomberg's "Top 10 Wines of 2020"
Top 100 is great. But top 10? That's new territory for us, for any of our wines. So when we saw that the 2017 Esprit Blanc had made Elin McCoy's Top 10 Wines of 2020 list for Bloomberg, alongside icons like Krug and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, we were floored. Even better, her description of the wine and of Tablas Creek encapsulates maybe better than any other short profile we've gotten what we're all about:

This showstopping California blend of five white Rhône varieties from Paso Robles is a vivid reminder that you don’t have to compromise on quality to support wineries consciously working to make the world a better place. The stunning Esprit de Tablas white has salty minerality; zesty acidity; rich, complex flavors; and serious aging potential—a grand wine for a reasonable price. Tablas Creek became the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified winery this year, embracing a new comprehensive program that includes social responsibility for its workers.

A "grand wine for a reasonable price"? That's an epitaph any wine would want on its Hall of Fame plaque. And from my perspective, it couldn't happen for a more deserving wine we make, or at a better time.

Cheers, everyone.

A picture is worth 1000 words, late fall edition

With our tasting room closed again due to our Regional Stay Home Order, we've decided that it's more important than ever to share lots of photos to make sure that people can maintain a sense of what it's like out here. To that end, I was out yesterday walking around the vineyard to get some photos to share, and found it inescapable how dry it was. Often, by early December, we've gotten a couple of nice rainstorms, and the vineyard is already notably green. Not in 2020. It's been cold, which is good, because it forces the grapevines into dormancy, but we've only gotten a couple of small rainstorms, and nothing recently. I couldn't help but feel the stress of the grapevines I passed.

And yet, the annual cycle continues. I got one photo of a head-trained Mourvedre vine, roughly a decade old, that I thought was illustrative:

Consider, if you will, the stresses that this and all our other vines have endured this year and endure, more or less, each year:

• An almost total lack of topsoil. Our deepest topsoils are a couple of feet thick, and much of the property has the fractured calcareous shale you see right at the surface. 
• Minimal rain for six months every summer and fall. Our total rainfall in the last 8 months is 0.8"⁠. That's a little extreme, but the average total May-October rainfall here at Tablas Creek over the last 25 years is just over two inches. Yes, our winters are wet. And yes, our soils do an amazing job retaining that winter rain. But this is a lot more extreme than anything grapevines have to deal with even in the driest parts of Europe.
• Regular frosts in the winter. In the last month, it's dropped below freezing ten nights. That's not unusual; we average about 40 frost nights a year here, and though we've been lucky in recent years, spring freezes are the most significant annual weather threat we face. That too is more than Mediterranean regions like Chateauneuf-du-Pape face.
• Scorching summers. This summer, we had 21 days top 100. That was unusual; I wrote earlier this year how 2020 was the year where climate change felt real. But we average roughly a dozen 100+ days each year. And while the Mediterranean can get very hot, 90s are a lot more common than 100s there.

That Mourvedre vine has never had a drop of irrigation. There's not even any irrigation infrastructure in that block. And yet, each year it sprouts, flowers, ripens a crop, and stores what it needs for the next year. And out of this struggle comes grapes (and wines) of intensity and character. Deep roots that reflect the calcareous soils we love. Resilience and longevity.

It's not an easy life, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Mourvedre: Sidelined by Phylloxera No More

One of the silver linings of the last nine months unable to travel has been the chance to spend time virtually with some of California winemakers whose work I find inspiring. One of these is Bedrock Wine Company's Morgan Twain-Peterson. He and I were paired up in the finale of the California Wine Institute's "Behind the Wine" series. We got a chance to talk about heritage clones and the work he's doing as a part of the California Historic Vineyard Society, which has interesting parallels to the work we've been doing bringing in the complete collection of Rhone varieties. It turns out that in mapping the pre-phylloxera vineyards he's working with, he's uncovering genetic diversity that has amazed even him. The vineyards are, as you would probably expect, mostly Zinfandel, but (as I learned in the lead-up to our session) include plenty of Rhone varieties like Mataro (the old name for Mourvedre), Grenache, and Carignane. He found one vineyard with three Vaccarese vines, and another with one Clairette Blanche. That's amazing.

Week before last, Morgan sent me a link as a follow up to our conversation about Mourvedre/Mataro. It was a link to a copy of the 1884 Ampelography by Charles A Wetmore, archived via Google and the University of California. Wetmore was at that time the Chief Executive Viticultural Officer of California's wine's first governing body: the Board of State Viticultural Commissioners.

Inside, Wetmore takes the major grape varieties that had at that point made their way to California and evaluates each for its success and potential in the state. One of the grapes that he was most excited about was Mataro. [A quick aside; even then there was confusion about its name, with Wetmore noting that it was "called generally Mourvedre" along the Mediterranean coast of France, but Mataro "along the Spanish coast" with both names in widespread use.] He begins: "Although this is not as extensively cultivated now as other varieties for red wine, yet its present popularity demands for it a place next to the Zinfandel; indeed, I believe that for the future it will have a wider range of usefulness."

He continues with (for me) the piece's most interesting assertion: "All the great French authorities agree in placing the Mataro as the finest red wine grape of the southern regions." This is a good reminder that before phylloxera, Mourvedre was the dominant Rhone grape, not Grenache. After some comments on its ripening, he says "The apparent defect of this grape is the roughness of the new wine; but this is the defect of most noble varieties. Like the Cabernet-Sauvignon of Bordeaux, it requires age to develop its quality."

He goes on: "The chief merits of Mataro are, viz: The vine bears well and resists early fall rains; the fruit contains an abundance of tannin; the wine is wholesome, easily fermented and contributes its fermenting and keeping qualities to others with which it is combined." That is an amazingly pithy summation of why so many Rhone (and Rhone Rangers) producers work with Mourvedre, even if it's not a lead grape for them: the tannic structure and resistance to oxidation that Mourvedre brings to a blend even in small quantities.

After quoting some French authorities, he concludes "I believe there are few red wine vineyards in California, whether for dry or sweet wine, wherein the introduction of a proportion of Mataro, varying from ten to seventy-five per cent, will not be a positive gain." So, if both French and California authorities were so bullish on Mourvedre's potential, what happened to it? Why did it become a relatively trace variety, which in 2000 represented some 7,600 hectares in France, less than one-tenth of Grenache's 95,000 hectare total, while also languishing in California and representing just 605 acres in 2000, barely more than one tenth of one percent of total wine grape acreage? There are doubtless many reasons, but I think it's fair to put a significant portion of the blame on the root parasite phylloxera.

It is significant that Wetmore's work was published in 1884. That date comes during the phylloxera outbreak in Europe, and just before phylloxera devastated vineyards in California and forced widespread replanting onto grafted vines. Mourvedre didn't graft easily onto the rootstocks of the period, so was largely lost. The exceptions were the regions (like Contra Costa here in California, and Bandol on the Mediterranean coast) where the sand content of the soil was high enough to resist phylloxera, and vines could be planted on their own roots. It's from Bandol that Jacques Perrin got the Mourvedre clones that won Beaucastel renown.

This time capsule of a document is a great reminder of what a setback that era was and how many of the planting trends we accept as normal and historical are in fact a reaction to what was fashionable (and possible) in its aftermath. Case in point: the widespread pan-Mediterranean rise of Grenache. While digging in the online French viticultural archives, I found this remarkable quote from this book from 1892, whose title roughly translates as "Investigation of the Reconstitution of the Vineyards in France and on American Vines" (pictured right) speaking about the region of the Var, which is now largely planted to Grenache. My translation of the relevant section is below. Riparia is the scientific name for the first of the American-sourced rootstocks that became necessary in the post-phylloxera era:

"The dominant plant is Alicante-Bouschet grafted on Riparia. We still notice Clairette, Ugni Blanc, Chasselas, Calmeite Noir, and Mourvèdre also grafted onto Riparia; while all the plantations made up of the first grape varieties indicated are vigorous, those made up of Mourvèdre are much less so, and seem to suffer. The owners of Saint-Cyr especially believe that this last grape takes [grafts] with difficulty."

Mourvedre isn't an easy grape even without its grafting issues. It ripens late, typically three weeks after Grenache. It is less vigorous and productive than grapes like Grenache, Cinsaut, and Carignane. And in the very late 19th and early 20th centuries, when neither California nor the south of France were commanding high prices for their wines, it's easy for me to imagine the decision making process of growers wondering what to replant after having to pull out thousands of dead vine trunks. That grape that ripens late and might not take successfully to this still-new grafting process? Or something easy and vigorous like Grenache. Yeah. Easy choice. If they worried about quality or color, it would be easy enough to figure they could solve that problem later. But getting something that would grow successfully had to be priority number one. A few decades of decisions like that and it's easy to understand how Mourvedre could become scarce.

That cautionary tale also highlights Jacques Perrin's bravery (and wisdom) in searching out the traditional grapes of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in the decades after World War II. Grafting technology was better. Viticulturists in France had a half a century of experience cross-breeding rootstocks and better understood which crosses worked well for which soils, which climates, and (critically) which grapes. Jacques' experimental vineyards are still there, including this great hand-lettered sign.

The success Beaucastel has had with Mourvedre and other even-rarer Rhone grapes is a major inspiration for our push to bring in and plant the historical grapes of the Rhone. There are, after all, lots of reasons that grapes can have become unfashionable that has nothing to do with the quality of wine they might make here and now. Take Picardan for example. It proved to be prone to powdery mildew -- a scourge of French vineyards in the mid-19th Century -- and was already in steep decline when phylloxera hit a few decades later. It would likely have gone extinct but for Jacques' efforts. But here, with mildew hardly ever a problem and a warming climate making higher-acid grapes more appealing, it's been terrific. And there are likely more discoveries like this to be made. 

Success stories like these are one more reason to admire and support the work that Morgan and the other founders of the California Historic Vineyard Society (including Turley's Tegan Passalacqua, Ridge's David Gates, and Carlisle's Mike Officer) are doing to map and DNA-test California's heritage vineyards, and to work with UC Davis's Foundation Plant Services to then clean up, archive, and reproduce these varieties so other grapegrowers can plant them. They've already shown that these old vineyards contain amazing diversity, with grapes there that appear to be unique in the world -- likely rare European varieties that have since gone extinct in their homelands. Which of these might be the next Picardan... or Mourvedre is an exciting question to consider.

Mourvedre, if you're curious, may be starting to recover both here and in France. From those 7,600 hectares in France in 2000, as of 2016 it was up to 8,754, an increase of about 15%. In California, its acreage has climbed as of 2019 to 1,166 acres, growth of 93% since 2000. There's hope yet. 

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a time capsule into that nearly-lost world of pre-phylloxera, pre-Prohibition California viticulture, check out the Ampelography. It's a treat.