Tasting the Library Wines in the Fall 2025 VINsider "Collector's Edition" Shipment
July 13, 2025
Each summer, I taste through library vintages of our Esprit and Esprit Blanc to choose the wines for the upcoming VINsider Wine Club Collector's Edition shipment. We created the Collector's Edition version of our VINsider Wine Club back in 2009 to give our biggest fans a chance to see what our flagship wines were like aged in perfect conditions. Members also get a slightly larger allocation of the current release of Esprits to track as they evolve. This club gives us a chance show off our wines' ageworthiness, and it's been a great success, generating a waiting list each year since we started it.
Each of our flagship wines goes through different stages of life. I'll start by giving a quick summary of those phases and where each of the two wines that we'll be sending out this year fit in.
For the Esprit de Tablas Blanc, there are three or four phases each vintage goes through. In its youth, within a few years of bottling, you get lush fruit, medium-to-full body and texture, and tropical notes, with underpinnings of mineral and cedary structure. Both our current release (the 2022 Esprit Blanc) and the release that will be coming out this fall (the 2023 Esprit Blanc) are in that phase. After a few years, the tropical, fruity notes mellow into something more honeyed, the texture becomes richer, and the mineral and savory structural notes become more pronounced. This is the phase that the 2019 Esprit de Tablas Blanc that we'll be sending out to Collector's Edition members is in. If you're looking forward, there's a phase (for some, not all vintages) where the honey flavors caramelize and the color deepens, but the texture is still rich and the structure evident. This is a phase that can be intellectually interesting but often isn't the most pleasurable because it can come across as a touch oxidative, and we note it on our vintage chart as "Hold - Closed Phase". Then finally the wine emerges out the other side, the texture and color lighten, the oxidative notes resolve into something more like roasted nuts, and the minerality comes to the fore.
The Esprit de Tablas has a similar multi-stage evolution. Within a few years of release the wines are robust, with lots of fruit, plenty of structure and tannin, sweet spice notes, and a high-toned line of acidity that keeps things feeling fresh. Then there's a stage where the fruit calms down, the tannins and acids start to soften, and you start to notice more of the loamy, earthy Mourvedre-driven savoriness as well as the saline minerality that we get from our calcareous soils. That's the stage that the 2017 Esprit de Tablas is in right now. The wine has greater complexity and depth than it did when it was young, but the primary impression of the fruit is of freshness, not age. There will likely be two more stages to come. First will likely (though not for certain) come a point where the wine's fruit becomes secondary to the structural and mineral elements and the wine might come across as a little hard. If I had to guess when this would happen, it would be sometime in 2028-29, but that's just a guess for now. And I tend to doubt that it will happen with the 2017, whose primary character has been generosity since it was young. But whether or not it does, there's sure to be a further stage after where the meaty, leathery side of these grapes comes to the fore, the fruit goes from fresh to more compote, the sweet spice deepens to something like mocha, and the tannins become supple. That can last for another 10-15 years before the wine finally begins a long, gentle fade.
While most of our vintages of Esprit go through similar stages, the vintage that creates each wine is unique. The library wines in this year's selection both come from vintages preceded by wet winters, where we felt that we could taste the health and vigor of the vines in every wine. In a blog from 2022 where I was trying to connect people who loved one vintage with others like it, I described each year in the following way:
- 2017: We felt like we saw a replay of 2005, where 40+ inches of rainfall broke the drought with a bang and the vineyard tried to do three years of growing in one. We dodged frosts, had a moderate summer before a dramatic heat spike in late August, but just as things got critical it cooled in September and finished under perfect conditions in October. Good yields but outstanding concentration and colors, juicy early appeal but the structure to age. Similar vintages: 2003, 2005, 2021. [You can read my recap of the 2017 vintage here.]
- 2019: A classic vintage for us, strong for both reds and whites, a product of good rain the previous winter, a cool first two-thirds of the ripening cycle, then consistently warm last third that accelerated the late grapes. The resulting compressed harvest had slightly above average yields, high quality across the board, pronounced varietal character, and good structure on the reds. A classic vintage for cellaring. Similar vintages: 2004, 2016, 2017. [My recap of the 2019 vintage can be found here.]
Both the 2017 Esprit and the 2019 Esprit Blanc showed a lovely balance of fruit and mineral, structure and openness, and richness and elegance when I opened and tasted them today. The pair:
My tasting notes:
- 2019 Esprit de Tablas Blanc: Still a youthful pale gold color. A complex, savory nose of lanolin, wet stone, tarragon, beeswax, and sweet spice. On the palate, structured and powerful, with mouth-filling flavors of nectarine and lemongrass, orange pith and sweet baking spices. The long, spicy finish shows both sweeter and more savory notes and leaves a lingering impression of chalky mineral. 63% Roussanne, 20% Grenache Blanc, 14% Picpoul Blanc, and 3% Picardan. A substantial wine to pair with substantial foods, from roast pork to spicy crab cakes to lemon chicken.
- 2017 Esprit de Tablas: A deep and inviting nose, like a warm flourless chocolate cake with a currant reduction sauce and additional aromas of fig, molasses, and loamy earth. The mouth is luscious with flavors of mint chocolate, plum skin, anise, and mocha. The finish turns more savory, with notes of teriyaki marinade and a spicy bay-like herby lift. The tannins maintain order but are cloaked in rich fruit. 40% Mourvedre, 35% Grenache, 20% Syrah, and 5% Counoise. Would shine with anything from a rack of lamb to pasta with wild mushrooms to a grilled steak.
The complete Collector's Edition shipment is awfully exciting, at least to me, between the combination of the library vintage and all the 2023s -- a lovely cool but sunny throwback vintage that produced outstanding results from both reds and whites -- including our first red release from the beautiful Fenaughty Vineyard in the El Dorado AVA in the Sierra Foothills, the newest entry in our Lignée de Tablas program:
- 2 bottles of 2017 Esprit de Tablas
- 1 bottle of 2019 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
- 3 bottles of 2023 Esprit de Tablas
- 1 bottle of 2023 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
- 1 bottle of 2023 En Gobelet
- 1 bottle of 2023 Grenache
- 1 bottle of 2023 Cotes de Tablas
- 1 bottle of 2023 Lignée de Tablas Fenaughty Vineyard Red
- 1 bottle of 2024 Patelin de Tablas Rosé
We will be adding to the Collector's Edition membership, subject to available space, in the next month. If you're on the waiting list, you should be receiving an email with news of whether you've made it on for this round. We add members, once a year, in the order in which we received applications to the waiting list. If you are currently a VINsider member and interested in getting on the waiting list, there's a good chance we'll be able to get you in this year. You can upgrade to the Collector's Edition online or by giving our wine club office a call. And if you are not currently a member, but would like to be, you can sign up for the VINsider Wine Club Collector's Edition, with all the benefits of VINsider Wine Club membership while you're on the waiting list.
To those of you who are members, thank you for being a part of the Tablas Creek family. We don't take it for granted.