2024 Red Blending: Power, Poise, and Echoes of 2017

Last week we finally got to sit down and taste the nineteen (!) red wines from the 2024 vintage we'd built around the blending table over the few weeks. The tasting highlighted the incredible combination of power and poise that we'd all remarked upon during the blending process. From the juicy raspberries-and-cream charm of the Cinsaut to the black raspberry and bramble complexity of Cotes de Tablas, the black licorice, green herb and cracked pepper spiciness of the Le Complice, and the warm and inviting meat drippings and baker's chocolate concentration of the Panoplie, each wine showed the combination of depth and freshness that you hope you'd get in a year which started cool and wet and finished with sustained California heat and sun. We'd suspected that the year would be great after our white blending back in March, but given the very low yields on our white grapes we weren't sure how much of the character would transfer over. We needn't have worried.

2024 was a vintage of extremes, with wet weather delaying budbreak and a cool first half of the summer morphing into a July which was the hottest ever recorded here and sustained warmth that led to a compressed harvest. That heat also led to very low yields of 2.35 tons per acre, about 20% below our long-term average. Mourvedre and Counoise were particularly hard-hit, which we often see in years with sustained late heat. By contrast, we had healthy quantities of earlier red grapes like Grenache, Syrah, and Cinsaut.

As usual, we got a visit from Cesar Perrin. And this year he was joined by his brother Matthieu, who is currently based in New York overseeing a few North American Famille Perrin projects. Like the Perrins' own system at Beaucastel, we take the blending process in steps and build consensus rather than relying on one or two lead voices to determine the wines' final profiles. After all, when you have nine family members involved in a multi-generational business, as they do at Beaucastel, it's a good policy and good family relations to make sure everyone is on the same page before you go forward. The same is true with a partnership like Tablas Creek where both founding families have equal ownership.

We try to do most of our tasting in the morning because that's when everyone's palates and brains are freshest. Afternoons are for the explorations of vineyard or cellar, or brainstorming, or tasting of wines out of our library. We began the week, as we always do, by tasting each of the different red lots in the cellar, which in 2024 numbered a substantial 66. In order to make the most of the Perrins' time, we decided to tackle all the components in one day. This included 20 lots of Grenache, 13 of Mourvedre, 12 of Syrah, 8 of Counoise, 5 of Tannat, 2 each of Vaccarese and Cinsaut, and single lots of Muscardin, Terret Noir, Cabernet, and a co-fermented lot. The one co-ferment notwithstanding, we typically keep our different harvest lots separate until they've finished fermentation so we can assess their quality and character before we have to decide which wines they fit best in. After all, a Mourvedre lot could potentially go into any of six wines: Panoplie, Esprit, En Gobelet, Cotes, Patelin, or the varietal Mourvedre. So our goal at this first stage of blending is to give each lot a grade that's reflective of its overall quality, and to start to flag lots that we think might be particularly suited to one wine or another. This component tasting is also an opportunity for us to get a sense of which varieties particularly shined or struggled, which helps provide direction as we start to brainstorm about blends.

We grade on a 1-3 scale, with "1" being our top grade (for a deep dive into how we do our blending, check out this blog by Chelsea from a few years back). We also give ourselves the liberty to give intermediate "1/2" or "2/3" grades for lots that are right on the cusp. 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. As you can see from my notes, this year we saw a lot of "1" grades and very few "3" grades:

How I graded each variety, in the order in which we tasted them:

• Counoise (8 lots): Four of these lots showed the pale, pretty, spicy Gamay-style juiciness that our varietal Counoise bottling typically reflects. I gave them all "2" grades. There were three lots that had deeper color and flavors that I gave "1"s to, and one lot that we've been aging in a new mini-foudre that had (for me) taken on a reductive oaky aspect that didn't seem to fit with Counoise's cheerful character. I gave that a "3".
• Mourvedre (13 lots): This was the best tasting I can remember for Mourvedre. All the lots showed vibrant redcurrant fruit, and many of them added meaty, chocolatey depth. If we're going to be scarce on a grape to the point that it constrains our blending choices, it's terrific that what we have is so good. Eight lots got "1"s from me, with five getting "2"s.
• Cinsaut (2 lots): The two lots of Cinsaut were quite different. One was pretty and more translucent, to which I gave a "2". The other was plusher, with plentiful spice to go along with its purple fruit. I gave that a "1".
• Syrah (12 lots): Syrah at this stage is easy to appreciate, with its mouth-filling dark fruit, spice, and powerful structure. But while they offer easy density, those big Syrah lots can be overwhelming in a blend. So I marked down some impressive lots for being so structured that I was worried their hardness would come across in a blend more than their richness. In the end I gave out five "1"s and seven "2"s, five of which were on the "perhaps too big to blend" side and only two of which were medium-bodied and pretty.
• Grenache (20 lots): Grenache as usual offered the most variety, as it can range from a pale, spicy profile more like Counoise to the darker-fruited, plusher licorice character often found in the Rhone. I gave nine lots "1" grades, two others "1/2" grades, six "2"s, one "2/3" lot (which ended up getting declassified into Patelin) that was both pale and soft, and one "3" that showed a polarizing oxidative character that alarmed a few of us while others saw through that and thought that with some cellar attention it could turn into something great.
• Terret Noir (1 lot): Not my favorite Terret Noir showing. I found it pretty but a little thin, with good acids and less of the intensely herby character I am used to from Terret. I gave it a "2/3".
• Muscardin (1 lot): Compared to the Terret that immediately preceded it, the Muscardin had more focus: still pale, but an appealing woodsy character and brighter acids. I gave it a "2" and we thought it would make a lovely Muscardin bottling.
• Blend Lot (1 lots): This predominantly Mourvedre lot was lovely, and will become one of the relatively rare co-fermented lots to go into Esprit. I gave it a "1/2".
• Vaccarese (2 lots): Vaccarese showed why we're so excited about it. Its two lots were both dark and powerfully tannic. One also showed a candied blackberry vibrancy, which pushed it into "1" territory for me. The other got a "2".
• Tannat (5 lots): All five lots showed Tannat's powerful tannins and fruit. There's not much to be gained by scoring them since they're all getting blended together, but I gave four "1" grades and one "2" to a lot that I felt had a little extra tannin. 
• Cabernet (1 lot): This showed good dark fruit but didn't have much in the way of Cabernet character for us. We gave it a "2" and it will become 2% of our 2024 Tannat.

To summarize, of the 66 lots we tasted, I gave out 31 "1" grades and three "1/2"s. That's more than half the lots that I graded as strong enough for the Esprit or Panoplie. 28 other lots received "2" grades. I gave out just one "2/3" and two "3" grades. Given that our target quantities of Esprit and Panoplie only make up about 30% of our estate production, it was clear that we were going to have some terrific lots available for varietal wines, Cotes de Tablas, and more.

We finished the day with our normal round-table discussion about what we wanted to try in the next day's blending of Panoplie and Esprit and came to the conclusion that given the overall strength of the vintage we should start the blending trials with three test blends, each one leaning a little heavier into one of the big three of Mourvedre, Grenache, and Syrah, and see where that took us. In terms of quantities, the shift in the market away from ageable reds toward whites and earlier-drinking reds is making me cautious about building up inventories of our most collectible wines, so I cut back our targets of Esprit production to around 2500 cases and Panoplie to 700. It turned out that it was good that I had done so, because that meant that even with the relative scarcity of Mourvedre we could lean pretty heavily into Mourvedre in our Mourvedre-based blends. 

The morning of day two we started with three test blends of Panoplie. As always, we tasted our options blind, not knowing what was in each glass. Panoplie is always overwhelmingly Mourvedre (typically around 60%) and we try to cap the Syrah percentage at no more than about 25%, because Syrah's dominance often threatens to overwhelm the Mourvedre character of the wine. In the first round, we split between two favorites. No one preferred the blend that maxed out Mourvedre (65%) and reduced both Syrah (20%) and Grenache (15%), as it felt like it didn't have quite the fruit intensity of the other options. But we split between a blend that used the most Grenache (25%, along with 58% Mourvedre and 17% Syrah) which got 60% of the first-place votes and the blend with the most Syrah (27%, along with 62% Mourvedre and just 11% Grenache) which got the other 40%. We decided to try our top choice against an option that kept the Mourvedre percentage at 58% and equalized the Syrah (20%) and Grenache (22%) a bit and ended up finding the new option a consensus favorite.

Panoplie decided, we moved on to the Esprit de Tablas. We tried Mourvedre ranges from 40% to 45%, Syrah ranges from 20% to 27%, and Grenache ranges from 20% to 27%. Somewhat to our surprise, the blend with the most Syrah was our favorite, with a the most plushness alongside excellent structure and chalky tannins. That blend got 70% of our first-place votes, and unlike the Panoplie, we couldn't think of an obvious way to tweak it to make it better, so we had a winner in one round. Final blend: 40% Mourvedre, 27% Syrah, 20% Grenache, 5% Counoise, 4% Vaccarese, and 4% Cinsaut.

We were making such good time that we decided to tackle our remaining wine club blends, starting with En Gobelet. The new production off of Jewel Ridge and other new head-trained blocks has given us more options for this wine than ever before, even after using some of our favorite head-trained lots in Esprit and Panoplie. With everything carrying good lushness, perhaps it was unsurprising that we chose the blend that leaned hardest into the grapes that brought drama, in the form of bright acids. Our favorite blend had the most Grenache (44%) and Tannat (9%) and the least Mourvedre (22%) and Syrah (12%) to go along with 13% Counoise. As with the Esprit, we couldn't think of a way to make it better, and got to move on to Le Complice.

For Le Complice, which celebrates the kinship we feel Terret Noir shows with whole cluster Syrah, we felt a little like Goldilocks. The blend with the most Terret Noir (21%) and the least Syrah (51%, along with 28% Grenache) felt a little too high-toned and not dense enough. The blend with the least Terret Noir (7%) and most Grenache (35%, along with 58% Syrah) felt like the alcohol came out a bit. The blend with a moderate amount of Terret (14%) and our most Syrah (65%, along with 21% Grenache) felt the most powerful and complete, with ample black fruit and structure, and a pretty dose of herby Terret-inflected lift. Done and done.

With good volumes left of Grenache, Syrah, and Counoise, we had more options than we often do for our Grenache-led Cotes de Tablas. So we tried blends with between 40% and 54% Grenache, 23% and 33% Syrah, 13% and 26% Counoise, and 5% and 9% Mourvedre. The first round saw us split almost evenly, with the wines that got the most first place votes also getting the most third place votes. After discussing what we wanted, we ended up deciding to dismiss my initial favorite, which had the highest percentage of Grenache, as insufficiently serious for the year. A second round of blending, based off the option that used the most Syrah and the second-most Grenache, led to another nearly-equal split. In the end we talked through what we each liked about the blends we preferred and tweaked the original option to bring in a little more vibrancy without compromising the essential seriousness of the wine. Final blend: 47% Grenache, 28% Syrah, 12% Counoise, and 12% Mourvedre.

Cotes de Tablas decided, we had the following volumes left of our key grapes:

• Grenache: 4871 gallons
• Syrah: 3151 gallons
• Mourvedre: 329 gallons
• Counoise: 1007 gallons 

The quantities of Syrah, Mourvedre, and Counoise were perfect for our varietal bottlings, so that was easy. With the Grenache, however, we had the opportunity to make another Alouette for chilled, early drinking. There seemed to be a break point where about 1800 gallons fit the criteria we look for for Alouette (good fruit, spice and acid, and minimal tannins) while about 3000 gallons had the deeper hue and flavors we want for our traditional varietal Grenache. The 50% increase in production of Alouette vs. 2023 will allow us to put some in bottle for sale at retail as well as continue our program in 3L boxes (to sell here) and kegs (for restaurants and wine bars around the country to pour on tap). We'll again plan for an August Alouette release.

Those decisions made, all that was left was to taste the full lineup of blends and varietal wines, and to add in the non-estate wines like Patelin de Tablas and Lignée de Tablas. It's important for us to make sure everything is properly differentiated. We don't want, for example, a Grenache-dominated wine like Cotes de Tablas to taste too much like our varietal Grenache, or the Esprit and Panoplie, both of which are based on Mourvedre, to feel too close to each other or our varietal Mourvedre. We also were looking forward to tasting our Syrah against the Lignée de Tablas Shake Ridge Syrah. I took a photo I love of the first flight -- the first five wines in the below list --  that included most of our more translucent reds:

My quick notes on each of the nineteen wines we made, and their rough quantities: 

• Terret Noir (175 cases): A spicy, piney nose with cranberry and dried strawberry notes. On the palate, surprisingly grippy, with watermelon rind, pomegranate, and pink peppercorn notes, and lively acids. Unique and fun.
• Muscardin (25 cases): A cedary nose of green herbs, Aperol, juniper, and celery seed. Focused on the palate with flavors of rhubarb and rose hips, firm tannins, sagebrush, and a salty note. Exciting. 
• Counoise (445 cases): A brambly nose with notes of dark berries, coffee, rose petals, and spice. On the palate, serious for Counoise, with flavors of salted watermelon and red plum, bright acids, and a spicy chaparral note on the finish.
• Cinsaut (100 cases): A juicy, luscious nose of raspberries and cream, candied violets, and black tea. In the mouth, flavors of red plum and crushed rock, garrigue and sweet spice. Delicious.  
• Full Circle (235 cases): A distinctively Pinot nose of black cherry, milk chocolate, leather, and a little sweet oak. The mouth shows cherry cola, sweet spice, and wild strawberry, complete with a little leafy herbiness from some well-integrated stems. There's a lovely loamy soil note on the finish, along with a kiss of oak.  
• Grenache Alouette (1800 gallons): An appealingly juicy nose of wild strawberry and yellow roses, with a little minty lift. On the palate, like strawberry candy, but dry, with additional flavors of watermelon and sweet green herbs. Light-to-medium-bodied, with just a hint of tannin and refreshing acidity. Should be delicious chilled.
• Grenache (1400 cases): A nose of red berries, milk chocolate, and sagebrush. On the palate, redcurrant fruit, chalky tannins, and a lingering saline note. An appealing combination of joyful fruit and complexity, with enough concentration and structure to cellar for a bit if people want.
• Cotes de Tablas (1500 cases): An unusually dark, complex nose for Cotes de Tablas, with black raspberry, bramble, and tiramisu notes. On the palate, evenly focused between black and red, both in fruit and licorice character, with good acids and complex notes of bay and bitter chocolate. The finish brings out a nice bite of chalky tannin and sweet, earthy spice. An outstanding year for Cotes.
• Mourvedre (210 cases): A lovely nose, quite dark for the usually red-fruited Mourvedre, with notes of new leather, mint chocolate, meat drippings, and rosemary. On the palate, cassis and chocolate-covered cherry flavors give way to spicy forest floor notes and a meaty complexity like a leg of lamb that has been rubbed with bay and thyme. Very Rhone-like, more than in any recent year I can remember.
• Lignée de Tablas Fenaughty Vineyard (520 cases): This blend of 70% Grenache and 30% Mourvedre showed a nose of caramel and red cherry, cedar and teriyaki. The mouth is vibrant, quite grippy but firmly on the red-fruited side of the spectrum in comparison to the estate wines in the this flight, with flavors of red licorice and plum skin. 
• Patelin de Tablas (4590 cases): A lovely nose of sweet earth, black licorice, plum, and cinnamon stick. On the palate, flavors of blueberry, teriyaki, salted chocolate, and thyme. The finish is long with notes of black plum and smoky oolong tea. A worthy successor to the 2023, which I think is the best Patelin we've ever made. Final blend: 50% Syrah, 28% Grenache, 20% Mourvedre, and 2% Counoise.
• Syrah (1250 cases): A nose of baked plum, licorice root, gingerbread, pine forest, and baker's chocolate. The mouth is vibrant for the often low-acid Syrah, with flavors of blackberry, anise, dried herbs and crushed rock. Chalky tannins, minty spice, and an iron-like mineral note linger on the finish. Impressive.
• Lignee de Tablas Shake Ridge Syrah (330 cases): Our second year that we've had a Shake Ridge Syrah in our Lignée de Tablas program. A classic Syrah, less brawny than our estate wine, with aromatic notes of tiramisu, blackcurrant, cured meat, and the graphite minerality I get from Sierra Foothills Syrahs. On the palate, black raspberry and caramel, Chinese five spice, and warm, baked earth.  
• Vaccarese (150 cases): A nose of black licorice, teriyaki marinade, and wild Concord grapes. On the palate, savory with flavors of pine and juniper, black tea, big tannins, and a grape candy note that lingers on the finish.
• Tannat (950 cases): A powerful nose of tobacco leaf, black cherry, baker's chocolate, and chalk, with Tannat's famously incongruous but welcome violet florality. The palate shows powerful tannins and ample purple fruits but also refreshing acidity and complicating notes of hickory spice and sage.
• En Gobelet (740 cases): A pretty, refined nose soy, chaparral, and strawberry preserves, like an autumn walk through a deciduous forest. On the palate, flavors of red licorice, purple fruits, dried flowers and red apple skin. Gently tannic on the finish with salty minerality and herby lift. Elegant.
• Le Complice (360 cases): A powerful nose of black licorice, green herbs, soy, and cracked pepper. The mouth is evocative with flavors of black raspberry, sagebrush, cured meat, and bay. The tannins are big but cloaked in fruit, and the refreshing acidity and green herb note provided by the Terret Noir give it elegance and lift. Memorable.
• Esprit de Tablas (2500 cases): A classic Esprit nose of red and blackcurrant, graham cracker, new leather, and sweet spice. On the palate, notes of luxardo cherry, black tea, olallieberry, and both red and black licorice. The finish shows some youthful tannins over plum fruit and sweet spice. Should be appealing young but have plenty of stuffing to age. 
• Panoplie (700 cases): A warm and inviting nose of sarsaparilla, baker's chocolate, plum pudding, and hoisin. On the palate, plush with flavors of cassis and meat drippings, milk chocolate and elderberry. The licorice-laced finish lingers. Luscious and showy while still elegant. 

A few concluding thoughts. 

• What a treat to have both Cesar and Matthieu around the blending table. Cesar has been coming here for years, but watching Matthieu's excitement with what he was tasting grow by the flight was a treat, and lovely validation of what we've been working on here in recent years. With the growth of the Famille Perrin project list, there are some members of the family who haven't been as involved here at Tablas Creek, and seeing more of Matthieu is going to be lovely.
• The power of these blind tastings and blending trials was driven home to me by what we saw in the Cotes de Tablas. Because we select our top lots for Esprit and Panoplie, and then the next-best slice of our lots for our varietal program, the components left for the Cotes are often ones that we like well enough but don't particularly excite us: the lots that get "2" grades, and occasionally a "2/3". And yet the Cotes this year is exceptional. It feels somehow meaningful that we spent four round of blending on this, our entry-tier estate wine, which is more than we did on any other. And it drives home that what one wine needs isn't the same as what another might. Yes, we did declassify a few lots into Patelin. But all the grapes found a home, and even our entry-level wines get our full attention around the blending table.   
• In terms of vintage comps, I feel like the best recent one is 2017. It wasn't an exact match in weather or chemistry, but did have both the ample rain the winter before and the sustained heat before and during harvest that compressed our timeline. 2017 was a little more generous in terms of yields, but gave us a similar balance of lushness and vibrancy. If that plays out, we'll be happy, as the 2017s are providing some of our favorite drinking right now. If you'd like to dive into a more comprehensive list of vintage comps, check out my 2022 blog post diving into vintage character. It will be a pleasure to get to know these wines as they rest in barrel and eventually (or in the case of the Alouette Grenache, pretty soon) make their way to you.
• As we noted last year, some of our favorite lots came from our newly replanted (and mostly head-trained, dry-farmed) blocks from sections like Jewel Ridge. Those young, healthy vines produced juicier, more powerful lots, while our older vines tended toward a more elegant, mineral-driven profile. I love the balance we have right now, and am grateful that we have even more of these head-trained, dry-farmed blocks coming on line the next few years.
• I am grateful that last year Chelsea came up with the idea of Alouette. This wine gives us so much flexibility with our Grenache, which has been plentiful in recent years. It was noteworthy to me that I was more worried about what we'd do with the ~7300 gallons of Syrah we had at the outset of blending than I was about the ~9900 gallons of Grenache. The option of aiming the appropriate lots into a drink-now consumer-friendly wine is lovely. In the end, because our blends overall pulled in a little more Syrah than I'd expected at the outset, all the numbers worked out. But we have a lot more options with a grape like Grenache, which can go into rosé or Alouette as well as the blends or as a varietal wine, than we do with something like Syrah, which pretty much only works in ageworthy reds. As that category is struggling in the market at the moment, it's nice to be comparatively heavily invested in Grenache and to have a new home for some of that bounty. 

I'll let Neil have the last word: "I thought the wines were strong across the board. Each fell beautifully in its spot. There's a fullness about the year, a richness, not overripe, but powerful. The increase in the head-trained blocks was significant. And it was fun having the Perrins in town, as always."

From all of us, cheers.