Creating a New Legacy (Tasting) at Tablas Creek
March 26, 2025
By John Morris
Wine can feel complicated a lot of the time. So when we can, here at Tablas Creek, we’ve tried to keep things simple. Remember the days of elbowing up to a crowded, standing bar with just one tasting list available? That was the experience anyone visiting Tablas Creek had until about 2015. Sure, we would customize based on guests’ requests, getting special wines out of the back room, but the starting point for this personalization was the same for everyone. Personally I love going to a restaurant where there’s just six or seven entrees on the menu. It's a statement of belief in who you are, and can create a more purposeful, curated experience. And for a long time we felt pretty much the same way about our tasting. Why complicate things when we’re confident in who we are and the pedigree and classic composition of our wines?
But as time went on, options at other wineries proliferated, and we started getting requests from guests asking why we didn’t have a “reserve” tasting. We would explain that our standard tasting included our flagship wines, and that we were, in effect, giving everyone a reserve-level tasting, but you could almost hear the customers’ doubts over the phone. So we put our heads together and tried to figure out what an elevated tasting experience at Tablas Creek should look like. We ended up offering two, to compliment the standard bar tasting that was still what the vast majority of our customers chose. The first was a Seated Flight Tasting, which customers reserved in advance and for which they chose from a mixed (red and white) flight or a flight of all red wines or all white wines. The second was what we called our Collector’s Tasting (after the VINsider Wine Club Collector’s Edition), which was in essence a vertical tasting of our flagship Esprit de Tablas wines.
If the Seated Flight Tasting sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it became our standard offering when we reopened outdoors after our Covid-mandated closure. Giving guests their own space felt safe as we all started reintegrating with the world in a new pandemic-changed environment. Serving our wines in two flights meant that we weren’t in our customers’ space all the time. And the chance to compare and contrast among wines meant that guests got a great picture of what we made. We believe that making this elevated experience the standard tasting for most guests is a huge improvement, as it seems to offer something for everyone. But one of the casualties of Covid was that we paused the Collector’s Tasting at the same time, and just never brought it back.
Why didn’t we bring the Collector’s Tasting back sooner? There were two reasons. One, we were selling through our older Esprits and were having a hard time keeping enough inventory to pour six different vintages of Esprit. Two, even though we loved this tasting, as did many of you, somehow it just never fully resonated with the public. I can’t tell you how many times guests booked this tasting and then asked something like, “Why are we tasting 6 of the same wines? And only reds?” Our takeaway was that while this tasting was ideal for our some of our existing fans who knew the Esprit de Tablas story and wanted a deeper exploration of that wine, it was too specialized to satisfy all the visitors looking for a premium experience, and not a great introduction for people visiting for the first time.
Last summer, we decided to take another crack at offering an elevated experience. We took the shortcomings of the Collector’s Tasting to heart, and created a new experience that offers something beyond the regular tasting, while giving a more complete look at the breadth of our wine and who we are. We christened this new experience the Legacy Tasting. In this tasting we offer a chance to delve a little deeper into our portfolio and focus on our top blends. The current Legacy Tasting includes both a young and an aged Esprit de Tablas, a young and aged Panoplie, an Esprit de Tablas Blanc, and other treats that change depending on the season. If you’re a member, or someone who visits often, you probably know the Panoplie is quite limited in supply, and has never been poured in the tasting room with some rare exceptions. Over the last eight months we’ve hosted about 730 legacy tastings, and the response has been outstanding. Our wine club team hears regularly from members who signed up for Legacy tastings and loved them. Our tasting room folks are equally enthusiastic. As Senior Tasting Room Manager Charlie Chester said today, "it's the tasting that best tells the Tablas Creek story."
If you haven’t had the chance to experience a legacy tasting, we’d love to host you. For those who are not members yet, this special tasting is $75 per guest, each tasting waived per $250 purchase. For members of our Collector’s Edition wine club, a complimentary Legacy Tasting for two is a member benefit, available once per calendar year. For our other members this is $40 per person, also waived with a $250 purchase. This is bookable online for up to four guests. If you don’t see a time that works for you, or if you would like a splurge for a larger party, please reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll do our best to accommodate you.
We’d love to have you be part of our legacy at Tablas Creek.