2023 white blending trials suggest that we're looking at a truly special vintage: "each grape was clearly itself, but more so"

We spent four days last week around our blending table, working to turn the 37 different lots we made from our white grapes in 2023 into the blends and varietal bottlings we'll be releasing to you in coming months. Overall, we were really happy at the end of the week; the quality of what we tasted was uniformly outstanding, and quantities a lot better than what we saw in 2022. However, 2022 was so scarce -- due to the combined impacts of drought, frost, and our decision to pull out one underperforming Roussanne block -- that even with quantities of estate white grapes 55% higher in 2023 the wines will still be in short supply. So we still had some constraints on our blending this year that meant we entered the blending week with some fundamental questions. Would there be enough outstanding lots to give us choices with the Esprit de Tablas Blanc? Would the improved yields allow us to make a Cotes de Tablas Blanc? Would we have anything left to make varietal wines, and which ones? For the answers to these questions and more, read on.

If you're unfamiliar with how we do our blending, you might find it interesting to read this blog by Chelsea that she wrote a few years ago. And for a different behind-the-scenes glimpse, Neil recorded and posted little video updates of what we were working on and what we were thinking each day, which I enjoyed watching a lot at the time and found great fun to look back on now that we're done. If you missed them, they're on his Instagram feed.

Our first step was to taste each variety in flights, give each lot a grade, and start assessing the character of the year. Our grading system is simple; a "1" grade means the lot has the richness, elegance, and balance to be worthy of consideration for Esprit Blanc. A "2" grade means we like it, but it doesn't seem like Esprit, for whatever reason. It may be pretty, but without the concentration for a reserve-level wine. It might be so powerful we feel it won't blend well. Or it might just be out of the style we want for the Esprit, such as with too much new oak. A "3" grade means the lot has issues that need attention. It might be oxidized or reduced. It might still be fermenting and in a place that makes it hard to evaluate confidently. Or it might just not have the substance for us to be confident we'll want to use it. Most "3" lots resolve into 2's or 1's with some attention. If they don't, they end up getting sold off and they don't see the inside of a Tablas Creek bottle. Then, we start from the top of our hierarchy (with the whites, that's the Esprit de Tablas Blanc) and brainstorm possible blends, taste those blind against one another, rank our favorites, and come to consensus, sometimes through multiple iterations. Once we've determined the blend and quantity for the Esprit Blanc, we set aside the lots needed and look at what we have left for possible Cotes de Tablas Blanc and varietal bottlings. Finally, we taste everything we're going to make to be sure that each feels complete and individual. A snapshot of my notes is below. If you look closely, you'll see just how many 1's there are and how few 3's:

The team which assembled for the entire week included Neil, Chelsea, Craig, Amanda, Austin, Kaitlyn, and myself. We had a few days when Gustavo and Erin joined us. I'm conscious of the fact that these blending weeks are like final exams for the cellar team, where their work is suddenly made public and evaluated. The high quality across the board is a great testament to their work over the last six months. I'm also grateful for the work that goes into these tastings, including pulling hundreds of individual lots, careful measuring and assembly, and then the lab work to get the samples clean and ready to taste. I captured this photo of Amanda, Craig, and Austin on Wednesday morning, tools of the trade in hand:

As usual, we took the first two days to taste through all the individual lots, with the core varieties we use for Esprit Blanc (Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, and Picpoul) on Monday, and everything else on Tuesday. My quick thoughts on each variety are below. For context, in a normal year, for every 10 lots we might see three or four "1" grades, five or six "2" grades and one "3" grade. When we think a lot is right on the cusp between two grades, we can note that with a slash ("1/2", or "2/3"). In rough harvest order:

• Roussanne (10 lots): The quality of the Roussanne was outstanding, with excellent richness and texture across the board, and surprisingly good acids for this usually low-acid grape. I gave six lots, with characters spanning the spectrum between focused and mineral-driven, and opulent with a kiss of sweet oak, "1" grades. One other, to which I gave a "1/2", was less vibrant but pretty, while three others got "2" grades for various reasons, two were a touch softer than I'd like for the Esprit (but will be delicious in a varietal Roussanne) while one (which ended up going into Cotes Blanc) was high toned with great acids but without the characteristic Roussanne breadth.
• Grenache Blanc (9 lots): A great Grenache Blanc showing, with six lots getting "1" grades, one "1/2" and two "2" lots that in other years could have been 1's. Everything was mouth-filling but electric with green apple and key lime acids, long finishes, and good minerality. The two that I gave "2" grades to were still sweet enough I was reluctant to earmark them for Esprit, but in all likelihood will when they're dry be just as good as the ones I gave "1" grades to.
• Picpoul Blanc (4 lots): A little like the Grenache Blanc, I had trouble not giving all four lots "1" grades, as they all showed what we like best about Picpoul: its tropical fruit, creamy texture, and electric acids. I ended up marking one lot down to a "1/2" because it was a little less expressive than the others, but in reality it could have been a "1".
• Viognier (4 lots): A Viognier vintage with good richness and good acids, but with a little less Viognier character than I was expecting. The two lots that had that luscious tropicality along with the richness and acids got "1" grades, while the other two got a "1/2" and a "2".
• Marsanne (4 lots): Although I gave the same grades I did to Viognier (two 1's, a 1/2, and a 2) I felt like it was a really good Marsanne vintage, and I feel like in retrospect I was grading a little harshly. The top lots had pretty luscious honeydew character with nice texture and a salty mineral note. The "1/2" was still a little sweet but heading in the right direction, while the "2" lot was a touch on the dense side, more like Roussanne than Marsanne.
• Picardan (1 lots): Only one Picardan lot this year, but it was lovely, with kiwi and pear fruit, nice minerality, and a little pithy bite on the finish. I gave it a "1".
• Bourboulenc (3 lots): Three lots, all quite different from one another. My favorite, textured with nice cantaloupe fruit, rich texture, and salty minerality, I gave a "1". Another that was darker and nuttier, but still within the boundaries of what we consider characteristic for Bourboulenc, got a "2". And the third, which was still sweet and unfinished, had an unusual coffee grounds character that I wasn't sure what to make of. I gave it a "2/3" but am sure it will in the end become something worthwhile. This tasting also suggested that it was to Bourboulenc that we would look to find the small Tablas Creek component for Patelin de Tablas Blanc in 2023.
• Clairette Blanche (1 lot): Just one two-barrel lot of Clairette Blanche in 2023, with classic peppered citrus character and a clean minerality that I loved. I gave it a "1".
• Cotes Maduena Blend (1 lot): From a newly replanted block, we made a small field blend of Clairette Blanche (61%) and Roussanne (39%). It was still sweet, seemingly at this point more dominated by Clairette than Roussanne and without a super well-defined character though pretty enough. I gave it a "2". 

We finished Tuesday by brainstorming ideas for the Esprit Blanc. We've figured that our bare minimum of Esprit Blanc that we need to sell here and around the country and world is around 1700 cases, and that's what we've made the last two years. But given that we're already sold out of our 2021 Esprit Blanc, six months before the 2022 will be released, I wanted to increase our production back up to around 2100 cases. At that quantity, we didn't have infinite options (so, for example, we couldn't make a blend that was 70% Roussanne or 25% Picpoul because the quantities just weren't there) and we decided to make one blend that used our maximum possible Roussanne (around 55%), another that used our maximum Grenache Blanc (around 25%) and another that leaned more heavily into the brighter varieties like Picpoul and Bourboulenc and see where that took us. All three blends were going to use our full production of Picardan and Clairette, which were only going to amount to 5% and 2%. It's a bummer knowing that we won't have either of those as varietal wines, but with so little it didn't make sense to split up what there was. 

Wednesday morning, we started on our blending work by tasting three possible Esprit de Tablas Blanc blends. To my surprise, our least favorite was the one that leaned most heavily into Grenache Blanc. It had good texture and plenty of acids, but felt less expressive than the other two glasses. Our second-favorite was the one that maxed out Roussanne. It had the deepest flavor, and lots of length, but felt a little one-dimensional. Our consensus favorite turned out to be the glass with the least Roussanne (still, at 48%, 15% more than we were able to use last year) which left more room for Grenache Blanc, Picpoul, and Bourboulenc. It was the most charming on the nose, with the most evident fruit, great acids, and plenty of texture and length. And thinking about it, I can understand why. The difference between 48% and 55% Roussanne doesn't sound huge, but at 48% we were using roughly the top 60% of the Roussanne that we produced this year. The additional Roussanne required to get to 55% meant that we were using some Roussanne lots that received "2" grades instead of just the consensus "1" lots. It isn't surprising that replacing that "2" rated Roussanne with "1" rated Picpoul, Grenache Blanc, and Bourboulenc made for a better wine. And the concentration of the vintage meant that we didn't have any worries about it not having sufficient presence to stand proudly in the historical lineup of Esprit Blanc. Final blend: 48% Roussanne, 22% Grenache Blanc, 13% Picpoul Blanc, 10% Bourboulenc, 5% Picardan, and 2% Clairette Blanche. Side note: I love that it again includes all six of the white grapes legal in Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

In 2022, it was clear that we didn't have the quantity to both make a Cotes de Tablas Blanc and the number of varietal wines we needed to satisfy our wine club and tasting room. So, we made the difficult choice to sacrifice Cotes Blanc for a year. I'd been hoping that quantities would rebound to the point that making Cotes Blanc again would be an easy choice, but instead it was a difficult choice. We need about 1300 cases of Cotes Blanc for the various uses we make of it (wine club, tasting room, and wholesale sales) and if we made that quantity, that would leave about 1750 cases of varietal wines in some combination. In that mix, we needed one wine of at least 800 cases (to go out to our wine club in the "classic" mix) and at least three others at 150+ cases (to go out in our "White Wine Selection" mix). Add those up and it works... but leaves only a little wiggle room. Given our post-Esprit quantities, the only variety with enough gallonage to include in a classic shipment was Grenache Blanc. So for our Cotes Blanc trials Chelsea put together three options, one using our maximum amount of Viognier and Marsanne, another using our maximum amount of Viognier and Grenache Blanc, and another reducing our Viognier a bit and making room for a little more of everything else. If we didn't love any of the options, we could bail on the Cotes Blanc and just make varietal wines.

Happily, all three of the test blends were good, and we truly loved the last one, which reduced Viognier to 34% and included more Marsanne (31%), Grenache Blanc (20%), Roussanne (13%), and a little Clairette Blanche (2%) that came along for the ride because it was in the Cotes Maduena field blend. The Viognier-heavier blends both felt rich and dense, perhaps a bit too much so despite their bright acids, while the blend we chose showed more elegance and translucency to its flavors while still being mouth-filling and luscious. It felt like just what we wanted for this lovely vintage. Added advantage: we're able to make a varietal Viognier, which I hadn't been expecting.

On Thursday, we convened to re-taste the blends we'd decided on as well as the varietal wines that our blending decisions resulted in and the two non-estate wines that weren't included in the blending. Our main goal in this tasting is to make sure that there is definition between the different wines that share a lead grape (say, our Viognier and our Cotes de Tablas Blanc, or our Roussanne and our Esprit de Tablas Blanc) as well as the estate and non-estate wines (like our estate Grenache Blanc and the Lignée de Tablas Grenache Blanc that we made from Zaca Mesa Vineyard grapes this year). To make these comparisons easier, we tasted in two flights of five wines, in the order below. My brief notes on each wine, with the rough quantity we'll be bottling this summer:

• 2023 Bourboulenc (175 cases): A pithy nose, but rich, with mineral, almond, and mango notes. One the palate, quite rich, still a little sweet, with flavors of cumquat and baked apple, marmalade and toasted graham cracker. There's a nice pithy bite at the end. But when it's bottled, this is going to taste quite different than it does now.
• 2023 Picpoul Blanc (175 cases): A high-toned nose of kiwi, honeydew melon rind, crushed rock, and lemon verbena. On the palate, fresh pineapple and green apple fruit, creamy texture, and lovely acids that reveal a wet stone minerality on the finish. Lovely. 
• 2023 Grenache Blanc (900 cases): A classic Grenache Blanc nose of baked green apple, chalky minerals, anise, and sage butter. On the palate, flavors of lemon drop and apple galette, lovely rich texture kept in check by vibrant acids and Grenache Blanc's phenolic architecture that offers a hint of tannin on the finish.
• 2023 Lignée de Tablas Grenache Blanc Zaca Mesa Vineyard (220 cases): A nose reminiscent of sauvignon blanc, with notes of gooseberry and sea spray, elderflower and ripe pear. Similar in the mouth, with white grapefruit and green herb flavors like lemongrass and thyme. Fresh and lively, lighter in body than our estate Grenache Blanc. Pretty and fun.
• 2023 Patelin de Tablas Blanc (4300 cases, plus some wine for boxes and kegs): A plush nose equally balanced between Grenache Blanc and Viognier right now: apricot and ripe pear, oyster shell minerality, and a little pithy note. On the palate, white grapefruit and honeycrisp apple, anise, chamomile, orange oil, and a chalky mineral note on the finish. Lovely acids. Exciting that we have a solid supply of this! Final blend: 50% Grenache Blanc, 23% Viognier, 10% Roussanne, 8% Marsanne, 8% Vermentino, 1% Bourboulenc.
• 2023 Marsanne (100 cases): A lovely nose of grilled peach, honeycomb, sweet green herbs, warm straw, and petrichor. In the mouth, gentle but persistent, with flavors of cantaloupe and preserved lemon, lovely texture, and a little gentle minty lift.
• 2023 Viognier (150 cases): So very young on the nose, with high-toned mandarin peel and pear blossom aromas, a little pepper spice, and some barely-ripe apricot. The mouth is lush with flavors of nectarine, cumquat, and Meyer lemon. The finish is long, with a pithy bite and a lingering saline note.
• 2023 Cotes de Tablas Blanc (1300 cases): A plush nose of buttered popcorn, white flowers, melon, and salted caramel. On the palate, a burst of sweet bright fruit like baked lemon squares with additional notes of honeydew melon and crushed rock. The long finish shows lemongrass and mineral notes.
• 2023 Roussanne (260 cases): Absolutely characteristic of Roussanne on the nose, with aromas of honey and cedar and lanolin. On the palate, notes of vanilla custard, white flowers, a little kiss of sweet oak, and surprisingly bright acids maintaining order on the long finish.
• 2023 Esprit de Tablas Blanc (2100 cases): A nose equally poised between Roussanne and brighter notes, including kiwi, honeycomb, baked apple, lemongrass, and toasted pine nuts. On the palate, mouth-filling with flavors of quince and pear, rich texture, lovely acids, and notes of jasmine and salty minerals on the lingering finish. We can't wait to see where this goes with the additional 8 months of barrel aging it will get before its December bottling.

A few concluding thoughts:

• It was very nice to be out of the painfully scarce 2022 vintage, but the tasting drove home that white wines are still going to be in short supply in 2023. And I noted that in my 2023 harvest recap: that while white yields were up 55% in 2023, they were so low in 2022 that we still ended up below our historical averages. Once you set aside what we need for wine club shipments and our wholesale commitments, we're still looking at releases of most of our varietal wines in the 50-150 case quantities. If these are wines you look forward to, keep an eye on your emails. They will go fast.
• Why were things low? I think a lot of it can be attributed to the toll taken on the vineyard in the 2020-22 drought and the 2022 frost. The buds for a growing season are set the year before, so a grapevine that's under extreme stress one year will usually not set a big crop the next year even if it gets ample rain and no frosts that winter. But with the ideal 2023 growing season and the lovely wet-but-benign winter we've gotten so far, I have high hopes for 2024. Fingers crossed, please, that we dodge frost.
• In terms of what vintage in our history might be a good comp for what we saw in 2023, I feel like we need to go back to 2011 to get something that reminded me of what we saw in 2023. That 2011 vintage was historically cool (cooler even than 2023) with yields reduced by spring frosts. The result was a late-ripening vintage with both concentration and vibrancy, a lot like what we saw around the blending table last week. Sure, there are differences; we've got more grapes in production now than we did then, I think our farming is stronger; and we didn't get the disruption of a spring frost. But those 2011 whites were outstanding, and if that's our baseline I think we'll be happy.
• I asked everyone around the table at Thursday's tasting to give a brief overview of their thoughts on 2023, and wanted to share a few of the answers. Chelsea contributed, "Everything is so perfectly poised with florality, minerality, and acidity. There's a great balance between fruit and non-fruit elements." Austin added, "Purity. Each component was clearly unique and varietally characteristic." Craig said, "Elegance and acidity. That's the throughline." Amanda called them "Confident and stately." Kaitlyn called the lineup "super delicate and pretty." Neil praised the wines' "great balance and intricacy, especially the blends." I'll end with Gustavo's contribution, which I thought captured my own thoughts well, that each grape was clearly itself, but more so, almost the platonic ideal of Rhone whites: "Each wine is what it is and I enjoyed that."

Now that the blending decisions have been made, we can move forward in getting the wines racked, blended, and given time to settle and integrate. The Patelin Blanc will be the first to go into bottle, in May. The Cotes Blanc, Lignée de Tablas Grenache Blanc, and all the estate varietal wines except Roussanne will be next, in June. And the Esprit Blanc and Roussanne will go into foudre and have another nine months to evolve before their scheduled December bottling.

It's not always easy coming into a blending week with high expectations. But it was exciting that the wines exceeded even what we'd been hoping for them. There wasn't a single "3" grade given out by anyone around the table all week. And the finished wines that we made showed all the promise of their components, and more. We can't wait to share them with you. We do apologize that while better than 2022, quantities are still scarce and these wines will go fast. We promise, they're worth making an effort to secure.