Tasting the Library Wines in the Fall 2025 VINsider "Collector's Edition" Shipment

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.

Tasting the Wines in the Spring 2025 VINsider Wine Club Shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club. In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club. Most of these (including five of the six wines in the classic shipment and five of the six additional wines we added to the Red Wine Selection and White Wine Selection shipments) are made in quantities of 1,000 cases or less. At least a month before the club shipments will be sent out, Neil and I open them all to write the tasting and production notes that will be included in the club shipments. In many cases, this tasting is our first post-bottling reintroduction (or our last pre-bottling check-in) on wines that we'll come to know intimately in coming months and years. I always think it's fun to give followers of the blog a first look at these notes. I love this candid photo that Ian took of me and Neil before we knew we were supposed to be posing with the wines. I hope it gives you a sense of how much we enjoyed the tasting:

The shipments that will be going out in March include wines from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 vintages. Tasting three vintages together is a great way to get a handle on their relative personalities, and typically my first chance to do a personality assessment on the newest vintage, on which we haven't even started blending trials yet. My quick thoughts, after the tasting, are:

• Although 2022 was our hottest year ever, the wines don't taste like you'd probably expect. Instead, there's a freshness and openness to even our most age-worthy reds that gives confirmation that we were able to keep up with the year's pressures and get the grapes off the vine in good shape. But the combination of spring frosts, drought, and unrelenting heat meant that harvest was so scarce that there were several wines we just couldn't make.
• The wines from the unusually cool, even 2023 season continue to demonstrate that this was an outstanding year across the board, from early-drinking whites to ageworthy reds. The wines all show deep colors, complexity, purity, and expressiveness. A lovely combination and a pleasure of a vintage.
• With only the first few wines, it's early to generalize about 2024, but the Vermentino and Dianthus show noteworthy lushness, but with bright acids to balance them. This is perhaps unsurprising from a year with a cool first half and a hot conclusion.  

I'll go through the six wines in the VINsider Classic (Mixed) Shipment and then move on to the additional wines we chose to include in the Red Wine Selection and White Wine Selection shipments. The Classic Shipment includes six different wines:

2023 COTES DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: After sacrificing the Cotes de Tablas Blanc in the painfully short 2022 vintage, it was a treat to have it back in the lineup. Viognier (34%) is always the lead grape in our Cotes Blanc, but the number two grape depends on the year. In the cool, slow-ripening 2023 vintage we ended up deciding to prioritize Marsanne (31%) for its elegance and luscious texture, with a bit less focus on Grenache Blanc (20%) in a year that naturally brought plenty of acid. Smaller additions of Roussanne (13%, for structure) and Clairette Blanche (2%, for minerality) round out the blend. The selected lots were blended in May 2024, and the wine was bottled that June.
• Tasting Notes: A lovely tropical nose of pineapple, nectarine, green herbs, and limestone. The mouth is rich but vibrant, with flavors of apricot, lime leaf, lanolin, and wet stone minerality. The wine's texture shines on the long, clean finish, leaving a lingering hint of apple skin tannin, sweet spice, and creamy minerality. Drink now and for at least the next five years.
• Production: 1330 cases.
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2024 DIANTHUS

• Production Notes: With yields about 20% below average in 2024, and Mourvedre particularly scarce, we reduced the quantity of Dianthus by about 30% and evened up the percentages of our two lead grapes. Named after a family of flowering plants with deep pink blooms, Dianthus is always led by Mourvedre (44% this year), for rich texture and watermelon and plum fruit, with Grenache (43%) for bright strawberry fruit and refreshing acidity. Smaller additions of Counoise (9%) and Cinsaut (4%) bring brambly fruit and sweet spice to the blend. The fruit spent 36-48 hours on the skins, and then it completed its fermentation in stainless steel before bottling in January 2025.
• Tasting Notes: A beautiful deep peach color. On the nose, an appealing mix of yellow raspberry and yellow roses, cranberry and sweet spice. The mouth is luscious but electric too, with flavors of raspberry and salted watermelon, creamy texture, and a vibrant line of acidity that leaves a lingering impression of plum skin and briny sea spray. A rosé to convert people who don't think pink wines can be serious. Drink before the end of 2026.
• Production: 999 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2023 COUNOISE

• Production Notes: Valued as a blending grape in France because of its spiciness, its fresh acidity, and its low alcohol, Counoise is rarely seen on its own. But we love being able to share one, and suggest you enjoy it much as you might a Cru Beaujolais: slightly chilled, with charcuterie or as an aperitif. We tend to ferment our Counoise lots in stainless steel to protect them from oxidation, and to age them in neutral oak to avoid weighing down the grape's bright fruit flavors. The lots that we chose for our varietal Counoise were selected and blended in June 2024, aged in neutral 1200-gallon foudres (large oak barrels), and bottled in February 2025 under screwcap to preserve the wine's freshness.   
• Tasting Notes: A vibrant garnet color, a shade darker than recent years. The nose shows brambly raspberry fruit with additional notes of rose hips, red licorice, and cola. The mouth is classic, with flavors of cranberry, cocoa powder, and wild strawberry, complete with fruit, leaves, and flowers. The long finish showcases a little burst of dusty tannins and leaves impressions of red fruit and flinty minerality. Enjoy it lightly chilled any time in the next four to six years.
• Production: 985 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2022 TANNAT

• Production Notes: Our varietal bottling of this traditional grape from southwest France, famous for its intense fruit, spice, and tannins that produce wines capable of long aging. Tannat is known principally in the Pyrenees foothills appellation of Madiran, but originally native to the Basque region. We ferment Tannat in open-top fermenters to keep it exposed to oxygen and start the softening process, then move it to neutral oak foudre where it ages for nearly 2 years. The wine was bottled in April 2024 and has been aging the last 10 months in bottle, waiting for its release. 
• Tasting Notes: A powerful nose of minty dark chocolate, black cherry, and anise over a deep balsamic note. The palate is powerful and structured with flavors of licorice root, cedary oak, leather, and blackberry. The finish shows the wine's powerful tannins and acids and leaves a lingering spicy impression like a winter walk through a pine forest. Pair with rich foods now or age for up to two decades if you're looking for a more refined experience.
• Production: 822 cases
• List Price: $50 VINsider Price: $40

2022 LE COMPLICE

• Production Notes: The seventh vintage of our blend that celebrates the kinship between Syrah (67%) and two of our newest grapes: Terret Noir (5%) and Muscardin (3%). Le Complice means, roughly, "partner in crime". Although Syrah is dark and both Terret and Muscardin light, all three share wild herby black spice, with the higher acids of Terret and Muscardin leavening Syrah's tendency toward monolithic darkness. As usual, we added Grenache (25%) for friendliness and mid-palate generosity. The wine was blended in June of 2023, aged in foudre until its bottling in April 2024, and aged in bottle since then.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of bay, boysenberry, iron, and pancetta. On the palate, more open than the nose suggests, with flavors of dark plum, baker's chocolate, aromatic bitters, and a molasses-but-not-sweet note like pumpernickel bread. The finish shows chewy tannins, dark fruit, and a graphite mineral note classic for Syrah. Drink over the next two decades.
• Production: 785 cases
• List Price: $65 VINsider Price: $52

2022 PANOPLIE

• Production Notes: Panoplie is selected from the top 3% of the year's lots, chosen for their richness, concentration and balance. Mourvedre (67%) plays the starring role, bringing dark red fruit and its distinctive meaty, chocolatey richness. Roughly equal parts Grenache (18%, for sweet spice and vibrancy) and Syrah (15%, for black fruit, density, and tannic richness) complete the blend. Each lot was fermented individually before being selected, blended and moved to foudre to age in July 2023. The wine aged an additional 17 months before bottling in December 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A rich and appealing nose of plum compote, baking spices, sweet tobacco, and a violet-like florality. The mouth is lovely with flavors of currant and red licorice, mouth-filling texture, and a Mourvedre's signature loamy autumnal note, like a November hardwood forest hike. The long finish has notes of dark plum and sweet spice, and tannins with the texture of powdered sugar that we find in our best lots. A baby, but already delicious. Enjoy over the next two decades or longer.
• Production: 779 cases
• List Price: $105 VINsider Price: $84

Four additional wines (2024 Vermentino, 2023 Patelin de Tablas Blanc, and 2023 Viognier, and 2023 Roussanne) will join the 2023 Cotes Blanc and the 2024 Dianthus in the White Wine Selection shipment:

2024 VERMENTINO

• Production Notes: Our varietal bottling of this traditional Mediterranean variety, known principally in Sardinia, Corsica, and Northern Italy. It is also grown in the Mediterranean parts of France (particularly Côtes de Provence) where it is known as Rolle. The Vermentino grape produces wines that are bright, clean, and crisp, with distinctive citrus character and refreshing acidity. To emphasize this freshness, we ferment and age Vermentino in stainless steel, and bottle it young (January 2025, this vintage) under screwcap. Vermentino yields in 2024 were about 25% below our historical averages, and combined with the warm year to produce remarkable lushness and tropicality.
• Tasting Notes: A luscious nose of lemon drop, passion fruit, sea spray and sweet green herbs. The palate has mouth-filling texture, with flavors of gooseberry and crystallized pineapple and a focused saline mineral note that lingers into the long finish, underpinning additional notes of tropical fruit and jasmine-like florality. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 838 cases
• List Price: $35 VINsider Price: $28

2023 PATELIN DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: Patelin is French slang for "neighborhood" and the Patelin de Tablas Blanc is our white Rhone-style blend of six grapes sourced from seven great neighboring Rhone vineyards: New Creations, Derby, Summerwood, Duas Terras, Templeton Preserve, Nevarez, and Creston Ridge, with a small addition of Tablas Creek fruit. We base the wine on the richness and acidity of Grenache Blanc (50%), with Viognier (23%) providing lush stone fruit and floral notes, Roussanne (10%) and Marsanne (8%) adding minerality and structure, and two bright grapes finishing the blend: Vermentino (8%) and Bourboulenc (1%). The wine was fermented entirely in stainless steel and then bottled under screwcap in May 2024 to preserve its freshness.
• Tasting Notes: A very Rhone-like nose of fresh apricot, finger lime, and a warm richness like a wheat field in the sun, balanced by a pithy Grenache Blanc textural note. On the palate, a gorgeous balance of bright and rich, with notes of quince and all the parts of a key lime pie, from fruit to a rich saline note that reminded us of salted graham cracker crust. The long, clean finish has notes of peach, jasmine, and white flowers. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 4180 cases
• List Price: $28 VINsider Price: $22.40

2023 VIOGNIER

• Production Notes: Viognier is the northern Rhone's noble white grape, renowned for its floral intensity and lushness. It's also widely planted in California, with more acreage than all other Rhone whites combined. While we get a range of Viognier styles off the property, we prefer our Viognier on the more elegant, mineral-driven side and so aim our lusher lots to the Cotes de Tablas Blanc, where we can leaven that character with Grenache Blanc and Marsanne. For our varietal Viognier we chose one high-toned lot, fermented in a neutral 600-gallon foudre, and bottled it in June 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A bright, arresting nose of grilled lemon, coriander seed, citrus blossom, and ginger. The palate is fresh with flavors of pineapple and white pepper, salted nectarine and sweetgrass. Rich texture is balanced by excellent acids and a pure, elegant finish. Drink now and for at least the next five years.
• Production: 156 cases.
• List Price: $45 VINsider Price: $36

2023 ROUSSANNE

• Production Notes: Roussanne yields in 2022 were pummeled by our May frost, and we ended up sacrificing our varietal Roussanne and using every drop of estate Roussanne in our Esprit de Tablas Blanc. In 2023, yields remained low as our largest block of Roussanne recovered from the previous year's frost damage, but what we got was outstanding, and we were thrilled that our blending trials allowed us to make a small Roussanne bottling. The selected lots (roughly 60% from 132-gallon puncheons and 40% from 60-gallon barriques, about 50% new) were blended in April 2024 then aged in one neutral 600-gallon foudre through the subsequent harvest before bottling this past December.
• Tasting Notes: A classic chartreuse color: golden with just a hint of green. The appealingly spicy nose shows notes of honeysuckle, citrus blossom, cinnamon, and sweet oak. On the palate, rich but still very fresh, with flavors of poached pear, fresh honey, mace, lanolin, and white peach. The finish shows lovely lift, with a little minty note giving way to lingering impressions of fresh coconut and white flowers. Drink in the next 3 or 4 years for a pure expression of Roussanne's honey and pear flavors, or hold it for 8-15 years for a flavor profile of caramel, wet rocks, and hazelnut.
• Production: 259 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

Two additional reds (the 2022 Mourvedre and the 2022 Syrah) join the 2023 Counoise, 2022 Panoplie, 2022 Le Complice, and 2022 Tannat in the Red Wine Selection shipment:

2022 MOURVEDRE

• Production Notes: We try to bottle a varietal Mourvedre each year, because we think it is a wonderful grape that too few people know, and one we feel worthy of some proselytizing. The hot 2022 vintage produced Mourvedre lots with a comparatively light color. Don't let that throw you; the flavors are both classic and intense. All our Mourvedre lots were fermented in large wooden tanks and moved to neutral barrels to await blending. We chose three lots that highlighted Mourvedre's higher-toned spice and red fruit elements, blended them in the spring of 2023, then aged the wine half in neutral 60-gallon barriques and half in one 475-gallon concrete egg before reassembling and bottling the wine in April 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty ruby color. On the nose, spicy, almost alpine notes of juniper and thyme, over lingonberry and crushed rock. On the palate, flavors of Santa Rosa plum, milk chocolate, red raspberry and cranberry sauce. The bright finish shows notes of dried rose petals, red fruit, and spice. The wine's brightness suggests to us that you drink this earlier than most of our Mourvedre bottlings -- in the next 6-8 years -- but it could easily surprise us and go longer.
• Production: 306 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

2022 SYRAH

• Production Notes: Syrah often seems to shrug off the challenges of hot years. In 2022, much of it was already harvested before our early-September heat wave, and the resulting wines showed a lovely dark color and welcome vibrancy that balanced the grape's black fruit and spice notes. We ferment our Syrah in open-top fermenters, punched down twice daily, then move it to barrel to complete fermentation. For our varietal bottling we selected lots with good natural acidity and lushness to balance the grape's tannic density, about 90% from neutral oak and 10% from new barriques. The selected lots were blended in June 2023 and aged in neutral oak until bottling in April 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A deep, rich nose of barbeque rub, teriyaki, and elderberry, with refreshing wintergreen and crushed rock minerality providing lift. The mouth shows notes of flourless chocolate cake, complete with blackcurrant reduction, a little minty lift, and a long finish where chalky tannins provide framework for the salted black licorice and blackberry notes. A lovely Syrah that should age effortlessly for two decades.
• Production: 656 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

If you're a wine club member, we've got a few different ways you can try these wines. We are hosting a live in-person pickup party here at the winery on Sunday, April 6th. Neil, Chelsea, and I will also be hosting another virtual pickup party the evening of Friday, March 28th. And we'll again be offering club members who visit between March 14th and April 5th the opportunity to choose their shipment wines as their tasting flight.

If you're not a wine club member, and you've read all this way, we'd love to have you join while there's still a chance to get this spring shipment. Details and how to join are at tablascreek.com/wine_club/vinsider_club.

American consumers' move toward white wines is happening fast. Most wineries will struggle to keep up.

We're in the middle of a major shift in the American wine market. Demographics are changing. High-end (and low-end) wines are suffering through their first prolonged slump in two generations. The market is adjusting to a profoundly negative (and in my opinion, incomplete) message on moderate alcohol consumption from a range of governmental and international organizations. That has led to some of the gloomiest headlines I can remember in my career in wine. But there are bright spots. The middle of the market (wines selling in the $20-$30 range) is actually doing pretty well. Categories like alternative packaging and chillable reds are hot. And there is one trend that we have noticed that that I don’t think enough people are talking about: a significant and accelerating switch in preference toward white wines.

Let's start with our example at Tablas Creek. When customers join our VINsider Wine Club they can choose between the Classic (Mixed) Selection that includes reds, whites, and the occasional rose, or they can choose Red Wine Selection or White Wine Selection if they want to limit their shipments to a single color. For the first five years that we offered people this choice, starting in 2014, the percentages who opted for each of the three alternatives hardly budged at all, with roughly 70% of people choosing the mix, 20% choosing all red wines, and 10% choosing all white wines. That held true right through to the onset of Covid. But starting in 2020 we began to see a shift, and that shift has accelerated in the last year.

Compared to 2019, the percentage of people choosing the White Wine Selection has jumped from 10% to 27% in four years. It's interesting that it hasn't taken that percentage from the red wine lovers; the percentage of VINsiders choosing the Red Wine Selection has stayed within a narrow range between 18% and 23% since 2014. Instead, it has taken its percentage from the people who would, last decade, have been choosing the Classic (Mixed) Selection.

We’re seeing something similar in the wholesale market. If you look at our 2024 wholesale depletions vs. 2023, and just at the three tiers of blends where we have red and white (so our Patelin, Cotes, and Esprit) depletions on our whites are up 35.3% vs. 2023 and the reds up 1.8%. I hesitate to make too much of this, as some of the issue is that last year we ran out of white and couldn't satisfy all the demand that we had, but it's still a pretty dramatic difference in performance.

We're not the only people reporting that white wines are hot in an otherwise chilly market. In a recent blog, Mike Veseth aka The Wine Economist dives into data showing that globally, white wine consumption was on a trend to surpass red, and white wine production already had. Traditional red wine regions as diverse as the Rhone, Australia, and Piedmont are making pushes to get more whites in the ground to respond to changing consumer preferences. Danny Brager and Dale Stratton, two of wine's most connected analysts, shared the following slide breaking down the performance in the American wholesale wine market by different categories last month to WineAmerica. Notice that over the last 12 months three of the five white categories show growth, while all six red categories show declines:

Why these changes are happening is surely due to a complex mix of factors, but I would suggest three that are the most significant:

• The move toward drinking wine away from formal meals. I believe that this is the most important and least understood factor driving changing habits around wine. Younger wine drinkers are drinking wine differently than previous generations did. They will have a glass of wine out at a bar. Or at the beach. Or in the back yard at a cookout. Or before a meal. These are occasions where you're not pairing a wine with a single dish. White wines can of course benefit from pairing as much as red, but they tend to feel more approachable without food than red wines (particularly rich, tannic red wines) do. At the same time, high-end restaurants, where many people would order bottles of powerful red wines as a matter of course, are struggling. 
• A desire to consume wines with lower alcohol. There is a ton of data out there suggesting that lower-alcohol wines are a bright spot in a difficult market. Most white wines are lower in alcohol than most red wines, and more importantly, most consumers think that white wines are lower alcohol than most red wines. This is a part of a greater push toward wellness with complicated impacts on all alcohol, but it tends to push drinkers toward whites rather than reds.
• The relatively lower costs of white wines. White wines, because they spend less time in the winery than reds and therefore accumulate less winemaking costs, tend to be less expensive than red wines. With the top end of the wine market struggling, the relatively cheaper option that whites offer is a refuge for price-sensitive wine lovers. 

Of course, none of these trends are absolute, and wine drinkers in the United States are a heterogeneous lot. But all three trends tend to shift people toward whites -- and toward the low-tannin chillable reds that are another bright spot in the wine marketplace -- and away from more traditional red wines.

Knowing that these trends are happening doesn't mean that it will be easy for an individual winery to make the necessary changes. Planting new vineyard takes time. It's typically five years from the decision to plant, which necessitates prepping the ground, ordering grapevines, planting -- to getting those vines into production. Then a winery needs to make (and potentially age) the wine, bottle it, and get it to market. Five years ago we were in a very different place! You can accelerate the process by grafting grapevines over from red to white, and I'm sure many vineyards are looking at that option, but even that requires investment and takes two years.

The relative scarcity of many of the white grapes that American wine lovers are looking for is another complicating factor. There's plenty of Chardonnay in the ground in California, but as the slide from Danny Brager and Dale Stratton showed, Chardonnay is the white wine category that is currently performing the worst here. And that makes sense if people are looking for lighter, fresher wines. Chardonnays, at least as typically made in California, tend to be on the rich and oaky end of the white wine spectrum, and both the demographics of the Chardonnay buyer and the situations in which Chardonnays are most likely to be bought likely correlate better with the traditional red categories rather than with the lighter-bodied whites that are the market's top performers. Yet more than half the total white wine grape acreage in California is dedicated to Chardonnay:

There are signs in the acreage data that people are starting to pay attention to the trends toward lighter-bodied whites. The complete list of varieties whose non-bearing acreage (basically grapes planted in the last 3 years) is greater than 8% of the total planted consists of Albarino, Chenin Blanc, Picpoul Blanc, and Vermentino. All four of those fit happily in the category of higher-acid, lighter-bodied white wines. (Side note: I’m also proud that two of these are here because of our grapevine nursery.) The significant nonbearing acreage of Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc seems to me to be a positive sign as well. But the total acreage of the grapes that would make the white wines that it seems like consumers are most interested in buying is still relatively small and not growing as fast as it likely needs to to satisfy increasing demand.

If California wineries don't pivot quickly, they'll likely be giving up one of the few potential growth opportunities in a difficult market to imported wines. But even if they do, it's going to take a while to see the changes in what's available. 

OK, fellow California wineries. Let's get pivoting.

Tasting the Wines in the Fall 2024 VINsider Wine Club Shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club. We have three variants each time: our classic (mixed) selection, which includes reds, whites, and the occasional rose, a white wine selection, and a red wine selection. In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club. In others, the club gets a first look at wines that may see a later national release. Before each shipment, we reintroduce ourselves to these wines (which, in some cases, we may not have tasted since before bottling) by opening the full lineup and writing the notes that will be included with the club shipments. With Neil in Europe, I sat down yesterday afternoon with Senior Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi and we dove into this fall's collection.

We base each year's fall shipments around the newest releases of the Esprit de Tablas and Esprit de Tablas Blanc, and this fall is no exception. But there's a lot more to these shipments than the Esprits. In our classic (mixed) shipment we have included three varietal wines, two reds and one white, which together dive deep into Grenache. The white is our Grenache Blanc, while the reds are both Grenaches: ours off our estate and a fascinatingly different one from the Santa Lucia Highlands which is the newest wine in our Lignee de Tablas program. Finally, we're including the newest vintage of our small-production En Gobelet blend, selected entirely from our head-trained, dry-farmed vineyard blocks. We think it's one of the most compelling classic shipments we've ever put together, and the additional wines that will go into the red wine and white wine selection shipments are super cool as well. I'm excited to get them in our members' hands soon.

The classic shipment includes six different wines:

2023 GRENACHE BLANC

• Production Notes: The 2023 vintage saw our three-year drought break with a bang, as the winter dropped nearly 50 inches on us. This was followed by our coolest summer since 2011, and we were less than half harvested on the date we finished in 2022. But warm, sunny weather in October and the first half of November gave us time to bring the grapes in in lovely shape. Yields were still low on whites, though much improved over 2022. For the varietal Grenache Blanc, we chose mostly lots fermented in stainless steel (for energy), with a smaller addition from foudre (for roundness). The lots were blended in May 2024 and bottled under screwcap the next month.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of crushed rock and verbena, lemon pith and sarsaparilla. The mouth has Grenache Blanc's signature mouth-filling texture and bright acids, flavors of lemon drop, wet stone, and citrus leaf. Somehow at the same time explosively juicy, creamy, and bright. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 906 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2022 ESPRIT DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: Our third consecutive drought year, 2022 saw yields further reduced by a rare May frost that particularly impacted our whites. You might have expected the hot vintage that followed to produce dense, alcoholic wines, but we found the opposite. Perhaps because the vines were under so much stress, we harvested grapes with bright acids and this lovely ethereal quality. Because of the vintage's scarcity, we ended up using our full production of Roussanne (33%), Picpoul Blanc (14%), Clairette Blanche (8%) and Picardan (8%) in the 2022 Esprit Blanc, and added 32% Grenache Blanc and 5% Bourboulenc to ensure we had both texture and brightness. As we have done since 2012, we returned the blend to foudre after it was assembled in May 2023 and aged it through the subsequent harvest before bottling it in December 2023. We've been letting it deepen in bottle ever since.
• Tasting Notes: A powerful nose of lanolin and honeycomb, lemongrass and orange blossom, like the world's most luxurious antique furniture polish. The palate is lively, rich but still light on its feet, with flavors of vanilla custard, fresh apricot, citrus pith, marmalade, and green herbs. The finish leaves lingering notes of grilled pineapple and green herbs. Drink now to enjoy its freshness or let it age for up to two decades for deeper flavors of caramel and roasted nuts.
• Production: 1812 cases
• List Price: $60 VINsider Price: $48

2022 GRENACHE

• Production Notes: As often happens here, our hottest years produce Grenache with a lovely pale garnet color with expressive high notes. That's perfect for our varietal bottling, where we always try to choose lots that emphasize Grenache's freshness and avoid riper lots that tend toward higher alcohols. The lots were blended in June 2023 and aged in neutral oak until its bottling in February 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A high toned nose of wintergreen and black pepper, cranberry and grenadine. On the palate, bright acids with flavors of plum skin, cherry hard candy, leafy green herbs and sweet spice. There is Grenache's signature youthful tannic grip on the finish, with lingering notes of aromatic bitters. This seems to us a Grenache to drink on the sooner side, probably in the next 4-6 years.
• Production: 872 cases
• List Price: $45 VINsider Price: $36

2022 LIGNÉE DE TABLAS HOOK VINEYARD GRENACHE

• Production Notes: Lignée is French for "lineage" and the Lignée de Tablas Hook Vineyard Grenache is our first red release in a new tier of wines that features single-vineyard expressions of Tablas Creek clones. The Hook Vineyard is part of the Hahn property in the Santa Lucia Highlands, about 60 miles northwest of Tablas Creek in Monterey County. The cool, coastal-influenced 122-acre vineyard is mostly planted to Pinot Noir, but also includes 21 acres of Grenache Noir from Tablas Creek clones. The climate, quite different from Paso Robles and on the coolest edge of where Grenache will ripen, leads to very long hang times, dark colors, and thick skins, making this 100% Grenache a fun contrast to our higher-toned expression of the grape. It was fermented in closed stainless steel fermenters to preserve its tension, then aged in large, neutral upright French oak fermenters for a year before being bottled in April 2024.
• Tasting Notes: Deeper in both color and tone than our estate Grenache, with notes of dates and black pepper, balsamic glaze and cassis, brown butter and mountain sage. On the palate, black cherry and new leather, and a lovely umami teriyaki/soy depth. The finish shows baked warm earth, beef jerky, and dark chocolate. Drink now and over the next decade.
• Production: 1088 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2022 EN GOBELET

• Production Notes: Our fifteenth En Gobelet, a non-traditional blend all from head-trained, dry-farmed blocks, and mostly from the 12-acre block we call Scruffy Hill, planted in 2005 and 2006 to be a self-sufficient field blend. These lots tend to show more elegance and minerality than our closer-spaced irrigated blocks, although in 2022 the wine shows a lovely balance of power and freshness. We chose a blend of 43% Grenache, 27% Mourvedre, 18% Syrah, 6% Counoise, and 6% Tannat, with the Grenache and Counoise providing lift, the Syrah and Tannat providing structure and tannin, and the Mourvedre earth, loam, and ageworthiness. The wine was blended in June of 2023, aged in foudre, and bottled in April 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A vibrant nose of spearmint and wild strawberry, loamy earth and iron, fresh fig and star anise. The palate is gorgeous, with a pure beam of red raspberry and redcurrant fruit given structure with a graphite-like minerality and deepened by a butter shortbread richness. Lovely now, but should also evolve and deepen for up to two decades.
• Production: 811 cases
• List Price: $65 VINsider Price: $52

2022 ESPRIT DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: As always, the Esprit is based on the red fruit and meatiness of Mourvedre (40%). The relatively equal proportions of Grenache (28%, for sweet spice and bright acids) and Syrah (22%, for dark color and savory, tannic richness) are a good indicator of the vintage's overall balance and quality. We finished the blend with 4% Vaccarese (for black fruit and minerality) and 3% each Cinsaut (for warm purple fruit and sweet spice) and Counoise (for vibrancy and wildness). At blending, we found it expressive, with a lithe energy that we thought would broaden into lovely depth and richness over time. The blend was put together in June 2023 and aged a year in foudre before bottling in August 2024.
• Tasting Notes: The nose is expressive, clearly Esprit: seemingly equally balanced between red and black fruit, with notes of black raspberry and mint, graphite, new leather, and sandalwood. The mouth is like a mixed berry crumble, complete with the warm baking spices and the buttery, toasty, salty crust. Plum skin-like tannins come out on the finish and promise years of meaty development. Enjoy any time in the next 25 years.
• Production: 2925 cases
• List Price: $70 VINsider Price: $56

Three additional wines joined the Grenache Blanc and Esprit de Tablas Blanc in the white wine selection shipment (members will get two bottles of the Esprit Blanc):

2023 LIGNÉE DE TABLAS ZACA MESA GRENACHE BLANC

• Production Notes: For the second Grenache Blanc in our Lignée de Tablas series, in 2023 we were able to source grapes from the Zaca Mesa vineyard roughly 70 miles southwest of Tablas Creek in the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Santa Barbara County Grenache Blanc has a distinctive almost Sauvignon Blanc-like white grapefruit character that we've always loved, and the Zaca Mesa vineyard was one of the first vineyards there to source grapevines from us. This 100% Grenache Blanc was fermented in stainless steel and bottled in May 2024 under screwcap to preserve it at maximum freshness.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of fresh lychee, oyster shell, anise, mint, and honeydew melon. On the palate, more honeydew melon, crushed rock, white grapefruit, and sweet spice, with Grenache Blanc's signature mouth-filling texture. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 208 cases
• List Price: $35 VINsider Price: $28

2023 PICPOUL BLANC

• Production Notes: For the first time in six years we were able to include our Picpoul Blanc in a wine club shipment. This 2023 is our fifteenth varietal bottling of this traditional Southern Rhône white grape, used in Châteauneuf du Pape as a blending component, and best known from the crisp light green wines of the Pinet region in the Languedoc. On its own, it shows the vibrant acids for which it is valued, along with a tropical lushness from the generous Paso Robles climate that gives it complexity you'd never see in its homeland. We use the majority of our production for our Esprit de Tablas Blanc, while reserving a small quantity for this varietal bottling. The lots selected for the Picpoul Blanc bottling were a roughly equal mix of neutral-oak and stainless steel lots, blended in March 2024 and bottled in June 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of fresh pineapple and sea spray, mint, and orange oil. The palate is like a dry version of a piña colada, from the pineappley brightness to a creamy richness reminiscent of coconut. The finish is clean, vibrant, and delineated, with a lingering mineral petrichor note that keeps the final impression clean and bright. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 181 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2023 BOURBOULENC

• Production Notes: Our fifth-ever bottling of Bourboulenc and one of the only ones outside of the Rhone. Bourboulenc is known in France to make wines with bright acids, fresh fruit aromatics, rich texture, and a distinctive nutty character. In just a few years, it's become a favorite here. Most of what was chosen for our varietal Bourboulenc was fermented this year in a single concrete egg. That was supplemented by about 15% from a stainless steel-fermented lot for a little extra brightness. It was bottled in June 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of fresh almond and kiwi, lime leaf, mandarin orange, and white tea. On the palate, richly textured but still bright, with flavors of marmalade and citrus blossom, marzipan and Meyer lemon meringue. The finish shows lemon drop and chalky mineral notes and a pithy textural bite. Our experience aging Bourboulenc is limited, but we plan to drink ours over the next few years.
• Production: 180 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

Two additional reds joined the Grenache, Lignée Hook Vineyard Grenache, En Gobelet and 2022 Esprit de Tablas in the red wine selection shipment:

2022 FULL CIRCLE

• Production Notes: The thirteenth vintage of our Full Circle Pinot Noir, grown on the small vineyard outside the Haas family's home in Templeton, in the cool (for Paso) Templeton Gap AVA. Its name reflects Robert Haas's career: from a start introducing America to the greatness of Burgundy, through decades focusing on grapes from the Rhone, one of his last acts was to plant Pinot at his home and oversee our first few vintages. Harvested before the early-September heat wave that defined the 2022 vintage, the grapes were fermented in one-ton microfermenters, two-thirds de-stemmed and one-third with stems for a more savory profile, punched down twice daily by hand. After pressing, the wine was moved into a mix of one-year-old and two-year-old Marcel Cadet 60-gallon barrels, for a hint of oak. The wine stayed on its lees, stirred occasionally, for 10 months, before being blended and bottled in August 2023. We've aged the wine in bottle for an additional year since then.
• Tasting Notes: An appealing nose of maraschino cherry, cola, cedar, fennel, and Chinese five spice. The palate is classic Pinot Noir: red cherry, salted caramel, sarsaparilla, and a little hint of sweet oak. The finish shows sweet baking spices and chalky tannins. Drink now and over the next decade.
• Production: 251 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

2018 ESPRIT DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: When possible we try to offer interesting contrasts between related wines. With this library vintage of Esprit, we give VINsiders a chance to compare two drought vintages whose challenges we navigated by focusing on lots with freshness. The 2018 Esprit is based as always on Mourvedre (40%), and in this vintage noteworthy for its lift and minerality we found that the darkness and density provided by Syrah (27%) was essential and we needed a little less of the bright spiciness of Grenache (23%). Counoise (10%) rounds out the blend with brambly notes and sweet spice. The wine was bottled in July 2020 and has been aging in our cellars since then.
• Tasting Notes: An inviting nose of blackcurrant and cinnamon, rosemary, chocolate, and a mineral iodine note. The palate is lovely, with flavors of Mexican hot chocolate, cherry fruit leather, saddle leather, and a licorice note that is brightened on the finish with tangy plum skin acids. It's lovely now and still youthful; enjoy it any time over the next two decades.
• Production: 4325 cases
• Library Price: $80 VINsider Price: $64

The tasting was a great way to hone in on the character of our two most recent vintages. 2022 is a vintage that shows outstanding vibrancy: clear, delineated flavors and bright acids, with plenty of fruit to back it up. 2023 is remarkable year unlike any we've seen in more than a decade and likely to be even rarer in the future: a cool vintage with a delayed but unhurried harvest that produced wines with intense flavors, vibrant acids, and uncommon depth. Both seem like they'll offer pleasure whether people drink the wines soon or wait. We can't wait to find out what our members think.

If you're a wine club member, we've got a range of options for you to try these wines. We are planning to host a live in-person pickup party on Sunday, October 20th. Neil, Chelsea, and I will be hosting another virtual pickup party the evening of Friday, October 25th. And we'll again be offering club members who visit the opportunity to choose the shipment wines as their tasting flight between mid-September and early-October. Consider this a "save the date"; we will be putting details on all this on our VINsider News & Updates page and announcing them via email soon.

If you're not a wine club member, and you've read all this way, then why not join us while there's still a chance to get this fall shipment? Details and how to join are at tablascreek.com/wine_club/vinsider_club

Tasting the Library Wines in the Fall 2024 VINsider "Collector's Edition" Shipment

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 2021 Esprit Blanc) and the release that will be coming out this fall (the 2022 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 2018 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, and sweet spice notes. Then there's a stage where the fruit calms down, the tannins 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 2016 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 2027-28, but that's just a guess for now. And it might not happen. 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 fades.  

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 moderate drought vintages, where the below-average rainfall kept things concentrated but the vines had enough vigor to maintain good freshness. 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:

• 2016: Even though we were still in the drought, rainfall was a bit better than the previous years, and the vineyard healthier under our new Biodynamic protocols. Yields recovered to relatively normal levels from 2015's punishingly low totals. A warm summer produced intense wines, both reds and whites, with dark colors and the structure to age. Similar vintages: 2002, 2006, 2019. [You can read my recap of the 2016 vintage here.]
• 2018: As played out a decade earlier, a strong vintage that was overshadowed by blockbuster years on either side, producing elegant wines that were easy to underestimate. The growing season was slightly cooler than average except for a scorching midsummer (July through mid-August). Things cooled back down for harvest, and we picked with outstanding acids, solid concentration, and slightly above-average yields. This appears to be one of our greatest white vintages, and a strong red vintage though maybe not with the long aging of our best years. Similar vintages: 2008, 2013. [My recap of the 2018 vintage can be found here.]

Both the 2016 Esprit and the 2018 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:

• 2018 Esprit de Tablas Blanc: Still a youthful pale gold color. An appealingly complex nose of sweet green herbs (lemongrass and thyme), honeycomb, cedar, and lanolin. On the palate, mouth-filling with flavors of vanilla custard, marzipan, preserved lemon, and a little pithy bite. The long finish shows both richness and brightness. 66% Roussanne, 21% Grenache Blanc, 8% Picpoul Blanc, 3% Picardan, and 2% Clairette Blanche. Would be amazing with roasted lemon chicken.
• 2016 Esprit de Tablas: Our most black-fruited vintage since 2011, with a meaty, pancetta-like note on the nose that is reflective of the higher-than-normal percentage of Syrah and which promises further development to come. Flavors of bramble, licorice, teriyaki marinade and wild strawberry, great texture, and a persistent bay-like herby lift on the finish. Complex and complete, powerful without any hint of overripeness. 46% Mourvedre, 31% Syrah, 18% Grenache, and 5% Counoise. Would shine with anything from a leg of lamb to spicy sausages to pasta with wild mushrooms.

The complete Collector's Edition shipment is awfully exciting, at least to me, between the combination of the library vintage and all the 2022s -- which have a lovely vibrancy that belies the heat of the vintage -- including a chance to compare our estate Grenache with a Grenache that we sourced from the Hook Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands for the first red in our Lignée de Tablas program:

• 2 bottles of 2016 Esprit de Tablas
• 1 bottle of 2018 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
• 3 bottles of 2022 Esprit de Tablas
• 2 bottles of 2022 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
• 1 bottle of 2022 En Gobelet
• 1 bottle of 2022 Grenache
• 1 bottle of 2022 Lignée de Tablas Hook Vineyard Grenache
• 1 bottle of 2023 Grenache Blanc

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.

Those of you who are members, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  And thank you, as always, for your patronage. We are grateful, and don't take it for granted.

Tasting the Wines in the Spring 2024 VINsider Wine Club Shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club. In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club. Most of these (including four of the six wines in the classic shipment and most of the additional wines we added to the Red Wine Selection and White Wine Selection shipments) are made in quantities of less than 1,000 cases. In others, the club gets a first look at a wine that may see a later national release. At least a month before the club shipments will be sent out, we open them all to write the tasting and production notes that will be included in the club shipments. In many cases, this tasting is our first post-bottling reintroduction (or our last pre-bottling check-in) on wines that we'll come to know intimately in coming months and years. I always think it's fun to give followers of the blog a first look at these notes. The wines:

The shipments that will be going out in March include wines from the 2021, 2022, and 2023 vintages. Tasting three vintages together is a great way to get a handle on their relative personalities, and typically my first chance to do a personality assessment on the newest vintage, which we haven't even started blending trials on yet. My quick thoughts, after the tasting, are these:

• The wines from 2021 continue to demonstrate that this was an outstanding year across the board, from early-drinking whites to ageworthy reds. The wines all show concentration and structure, yet with purity and expressiveness. A candidate for our greatest-ever vintage.
• Although 2022 was our hottest year ever, the wines don't taste like you'd probably expect. Instead, there's a freshness and openness to both reds and whites that gives confirmation that we were able to keep up with the year's pressures and get the grapes off the vine in good shape.
• With only the first few wines, it's early to generalize about 2023, but the Vermentino and rosés show unusually intense flavors with great acids to balance them. This is what we'd hope we'd see from our coolest year in more than a decade, which resulted in exceptionally long hang-times.  

I'll go through the six wines in the VINsider Classic (Mixed) Shipment and then move on to the additional wines we chose to include in the Red Wine Selection and White Wine Selection shipments. I was joined for the tasting by most of our cellar team, so these notes are a compilation of our thoughts. The Classic Shipment includes six different wines:

2022 VIOGNIER

• Production Notes: The two issues that affected our white production in 2022 (a spring frost in one block and the heat wave that hit the first week of September) both largely left the Viognier unscathed. We don't plant any Viognier in the low-lying section that got frosted, and the season had been warm enough that the early-ripening Viognier was already mostly picked by the time it hit. That left us with both reasonable production and excellent vibrancy in Viognier, and we loved the varietal bottling we made, which balances the grape's classic stone fruit and honey flavors with brighter-than-usual acids. The Viognier lots were whole cluster pressed and fermented in a mix of 600-gallon foudres and stainless steel, then the chosen lots blended in April 2023 and bottled in June. 
• Tasting Notes: A charming nose of honeysuckle and Haribo peach. The palate is long, pure, and textured, with more stone fruit and a tarragon-like note of sweet green herbs. Rich texture is balanced by some structural weight and unusually good acids for Viognier. Drink now and for at least the next five years.
• Production: 706 cases.
• List Price: $45 VINsider Price: $36

2023 PATELIN DE TABLAS ROSÉ

• Production Notes: We're excited to share both our rosés with VINsiders this shipment. The Provencal-style, Grenache-based Patelin de Tablas Rosé is as always led by Grenache (71% this year), which provides both bright fruit and refreshing acidity, while as usual rich, floral Mourvedre (20%) comprises the second-largest portion. Vermentino (a traditional component of many Provencal rosés under its French name Rolle) makes up 8%, with 1% of spicy, electric Counoise to round out the blend. 90% of the fruit was direct-pressed upon arrival at the winery, with the balance destemmed and let soak for a single work day, then pressed off after about 12 hours. The components were blended and fermented in stainless steel until bottling in January 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty peach color, a touch deeper than most recent vintages. On the nose, vibrant aromatics of fresh nectarine, wild strawberry, and jasmine. The mouth is rich with fruit but dry and bright, with flavors of strawberry tart and salted watermelon, vibrant acids, and a mouth-watering finish with notes of yellow raspberry and rose petals. Drink over the next 18 months.
• Production: 5247 cases
• List Price: $28 VINsider Price: $22.40

2023 DIANTHUS

• Production Notes: Better yields on reds allowed us to make a more normal amout of Dianthus in 2023. Named after a family of flowering plants with deep pink blooms, Dianthus is always led by Mourvedre (51% this year), for rich texture and watermelon and plum fruit, with Grenache (38%) for bright strawberry fruit and refreshing acidity and Counoise (8%) for spice and cherry fruit. 3% Cinsaut rounds out the blend with more brambly fruit and sweet spice. The fruit spent 24 hours on the skins, less than usual because of the year's deep colors, and then it completed its fermentation in stainless steel before bottling in January 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A lovely deep peach color. On the nose, a powerful combination of blood orange and juniper, spiced plum and smoky minerality. The mouth is rich with raspberry and rhubarb fruit, creamy texture, and a vibrant line of acidity that leaves a lingering impression of plum skin, rose petals, and briny sea spray. A rosé to convert people who don't think pink wines can be serious. Drink before the end of 2025.
• Production: 1396 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2021 LE COMPLICE

• Production Notes: The sixth vintage of our blend that celebrates the kinship between whole cluster Syrah (59%) and the wildly interesting grape Terret Noir (8%). Le Complice means, roughly, "partner in crime". Although Syrah is dark and Terret light, both share wild herby black spice, and Terret's high acids bolster Syrah's tendency toward stolidity. We added a higher percentage than usual of Grenache (32%) for mid-palate richness in this structured, powerful year, as well as our first-ever harvest of Muscardin (1%) which seems similar to Terret in character. The wine was blended in June of 2022 and aged in foudre until its bottling in April 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A gorgeous nose of sugarplum and gumdrop, sweet tobacco, pine forest, and dark chocolate. The mouth is vibrant, with flavors of cocoa powder, a tangy fruit note like red apple skin, an iron-like mineral note absolutely classic for Syrah, and a wild sage herbiness adding complexity. The finish goes back to sweeter notes of cola, baking spice, and (it is Syrah, after all) rendered pork fat. An unusually approachable Le Complice at this stage, without sacrificing any of its complexity. Drink over the next two decades.
• Production: 882 cases
• List Price: $60 VINsider Price: $48

2021 TANNAT

• Production Notes: Our twentieth bottling of this traditional grape from South-West France, famous for its intense fruit, spice, and tannins that produce wines capable of long aging. Tannat is known principally in the Pyrenees foothills appellation of Madiran, but originally native to the Basque region. We ferment Tannat in open-top fermenters to keep it exposed to oxygen and start the softening process, then move it to neutral oak foudre where it ages for nearly 2 years. It was bottled in April 2023 and has been aging the last 10 months waiting for its release. 
• Tasting Notes: An appealing nose of raspberry candy, violets, cassis, teriyaki, and blueberry pie. The mouth is mostly red-fruited at this stage, with flavors of plum and currant, a nice saline mineral note, and a note that was both woodsy and mineral that Amanda described as pencil shavings. Tannat's signature combination of chewy tannins and bright acids keeping things fresh. Pair with rich foods now or age for up to two decades if you're looking for a more refined experience.
• Production: 732 cases
• List Price: $50 VINsider Price: $40

2021 PANOPLIE

• Production Notes: Panoplie is selected from the top 3% of the year's lots, chosen for their richness, concentration and balance, giving pride of place to Mourvedre's lovely dark red fruit and distinctive combination of loam, earthiness, and meat. Each lot was fermented individually before being selected, blended and moved to foudre to age in July 2022. Mourvedre, as always, represents the largest percentage (54%) of Panoplie. Roughly equal parts Grenache (24%, for sweet spice and vibrancy) and Syrah (22%, for black fruit, density, and tannic richness) complete the blend. The wine was bottled in July 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A densely packed nose of pipe tobacco, red and black fruit, menthol, new leather, and sweet spice. The palate shows related flavors of fruit on the boundary of red and black: currant and black raspberry, with chalky minerality and chewy tannins that suggest lots more will be revealed with time. The long finish has notes of cherry compote, chaparral, and black licorice. Hold for six months if you can, and then enjoy over the next two decades, perhaps longer.
• Production: 822 cases
• List Price: $105 VINsider Price: $84

Three additional wines (2023 Vermentino, 2022 Patelin de Tablas Blanc, and 2022 Grenache Blanc) will join the 2022 Viognier and the two rosés in the White Wine Selection shipment:

2023 VERMENTINO

• Production Notes: Our twenty-second bottling of this traditional Mediterranean variety, known principally in Sardinia, Corsica, and Northern Italy. It is also grown in the Mediterranean parts of France (particularly Côtes de Provence) where it is known as Rolle. The Vermentino grape produces wines that are bright, clean, and crisp, with distinctive citrus character and refreshing acidity. To emphasize this freshness, we ferment and age Vermentino in stainless steel, and bottle it young (January 2024, this vintage) under screwcap. Vermentino yields in 2023 were better than 2022 but still 30% below our historical averages, and combined with long hang-times to produce remarkable intensity.
• Tasting Notes: A classic Vermentino nose of key lime, ripe pear, citrus leaf, lemongrass, white flowers, and chalky mineral. The palate is powerful and richly textured, with flavors of salted pineapple, lemon custard, and a focused saline mineral note that lingers into the long finish, underpinning additional notes of tropical fruit and sweet green herbs. One of the most intense Vermentinos we've ever made. Drink now and over the next five years.
• Production: 713 cases
• List Price: $35 VINsider Price: $28

2022 PATELIN DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: Patelin is French slang for "neighborhood" and the Patelin de Tablas Blanc is our white Rhone-style blend sourced from seven great neighboring Rhone vineyards: Derby, Windfall Farms, New Creations, Duas Terras, Nevarez, Creston Ridge, and Rails Nape, with a 3% addition of Tablas Creek fruit. We base the wine on the richness and acidity of Grenache Blanc (49%), with Viognier (22%) providing lush stone fruit and floral notes, Marsanne (10%) and Roussanne (4%) adding minerality and texture, and three bright grapes finishing the blend: Vermentino (10%) and Picpoul (3%), which we've never been able to source before, plus a little Bourboulenc (2%). The wine was fermented entirely in stainless steel and then bottled in screwcap in May 2023 to preserve its freshness.
• Tasting Notes: A nose equally balanced between Grenache Blanc's mineral and citrus and Viognier's stone fruit and white flowers, with additional notes of petrichor and peppery spice. On the palate, luscious flavors of stone fruit and lemon custard lifted by persistent chalky minerality and vibrant acids. The long finish brings back notes of white grapefruit, jasmine, and a briny sea spray minerality. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 4141 cases
• List Price: $28 VINsider Price: $22.40

2022 GRENACHE BLANC

• Production Notes: The 2022 vintage was our third year of drought, and Grenache Blanc was also hit by our May frost, leading to our smallest harvest of the variety in two decades. We used some in the Esprit Blanc, but sacrificed the Cotes de Tablas Blanc this vintage so we'd have at least small varietal bottlings of our core grapes. For the varietal Grenache Blanc, we chose mostly lots fermented in stainless steel (for energy), with a smaller addition from foudre (for roundness). The lots were blended in May 2023 and bottled under screwcap the next month.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty nose of peaches and cream, crushed rock, and lemongrass. The mouth has Grenache Blanc's signature mouth-filling texture and white grapefruit flavors, bright acids, chalky minerality and a little pithy bite of green apple skin tannin on the finish. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 339 cases.
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

Three additional reds (the 2022 Cotes de Tablas and 2022 Counoise, as well as the 2021 Syrah) join the 2021 Panoplie, 2021 Le Complice, and 2021 Tannat in the Red Wine Selection shipment:

2022 COTES DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: Grenache always plays lead in the Cotes de Tablas, and in 2022 the grape's bright fruit is on full display. We chose 44% Grenache and added 33% Syrah for darker fruit and minerality, while 19% Counoise (for vibrancy and spice) and 4% Mourvedre (for earth and complexity) complete the wine. The Cotes de Tablas was blended in June 2023 and aged in 1200-gallon neutral oak foudres until its bottling in February 2024.
• Tasting Notes: A vibrant nose of fruitcake and fig, chocolate-dipped strawberries and sweet spice. The mouth has black cherry and wild strawberry fruit, cocoa powder, and a crunchy brightness like bursts of pomegranate seeds. The finish shows a briary, herby note over cherry cola and clove-studded orange. Grenache at its most high-toned and appealing. Enjoy any time over the next decade.
• Production: 1160 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2022 COUNOISE

• Production Notes: Valued as a blending grape in France because of its spiciness, its fresh acidity, and its low alcohol, Counoise is rarely seen on its own. But we love being able to share one, and suggest you enjoy it much as you might a Cru Beaujolais: slightly chilled, with charcuterie or as an aperitif. We tend to ferment our Counoise lots in stainless steel to protect them from oxidation, and to age it in neutral oak to avoid weighing down its bright fruit flavors. The lots that we chose for our varietal Counoise were selected and blended in June 2023 and bottled in February 2024, under screwcap to preserve the wine's freshness.   
• Tasting Notes: A lovely translucent garnet color. The nose is surprisingly powerful, showing brambly raspberry, baking spices, and a little minty top note. The mouth is pretty, with flavors of red plum juice (imagine the inside, without the skin), creamy texture, flinty minerality, and a nice, long finish of red licorice and wild herbs with some lightly dusty tannins keeping order. Enjoy it lightly chilled any time in the next four to six years.
• Production: 380 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2021 SYRAH

• Production Notes: All the conditions lined up to make great Syrah in 2021, from the mild winter that preceded the growing season to the warm first half of the year to the cooler weather in August and September, and we had plenty of top-rated Syrah to both use in our blends and make up this varietal bottling. We ferment our Syrah in open-top fermenters, punched down twice daily, then move it to barrel to complete fermentation. For our varietal bottling we selected a mix of lots from newer and older oak, then blended them in June 2022 and aged the wine in neutral oak until bottling in April 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A dark, quintessentially Syrah nose of iodine, black licorice, blackberry and white pepper. The mouth is classic too, with flavors of blackcurrant and cedar, iron filings and dry-aged beef. The tannins are substantial but not hard, with black fruit and mineral notes reemerging on the long finish. A lovely Syrah that should age effortlessly for two decades.
• Production: 381 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

If you're a wine club member, we've got a few different ways you can try these wines. We are hosting a live in-person pickup party here at the winery on Sunday, April 7th. Neil, Chelsea, and I will also be hosting another virtual pickup party the evening of Friday, March 29th, with the opportunity to order 187ml tasting kits from us so you can taste along. And we'll again be offering club members who visit between March 15th and April 6th the opportunity to choose their shipment wines as their tasting flight.

If you're not a wine club member, and you've read all this way, we'd love to have you join while there's still a chance to get this spring shipment. Details and how to join are at tablascreek.com/wine_club/vinsider_club.

Tasting the Wines in the Fall 2023 VINsider Wine Club Shipments

Each spring and fall, we send out a selection of six wines to the members of our VINsider Wine Club.  In many cases, these are wines that only go out to our club. In others, the club gets a first look at wines that may see a later national release. Before each shipment, we reintroduce ourselves to these wines (which, in some cases, we may not have tasted since before bottling) by opening the full lineup and writing the notes that will be included with the club shipments. This morning I sat down with Senior Assistant Winemaker Chelsea Franchi and we dove into this fall's collection.

We base each year's fall shipments around the newest releases of the Esprit de Tablas and Esprit de Tablas Blanc, and this fall is no exception. But there's a lot more to these shipments than the Esprits. In our classic (mixed) shipment we have included two varietal wines, one red and one white, both of which I love, and one of which is the first wine in a new tier that opens up whole new vistas for us. We're also including two blends: the newest vintage of our Patelin de Tablas Rosé and our small-production En Gobelet blend, selected entirely from our head-trained, dry-farmed vineyard blocks. We think it's one of the most compelling classic shipments we've ever put together, and the additional wines that will go into the red wine and white wine selections are super cool as well. I'm excited to get them in our members' hands soon. Chelsea may not let them out of hers.

The classic shipment includes six different wines:

2022 LIGNÉE DE TABLAS WINDFALL FARMS GRENACHE BLANC

• Production Notes: Lignée is French slang for "lineage" and the Lignée de Tablas Windfall Farms Grenache Blanc is our first release in a new tier of wines that features single-vineyard expressions of Tablas Creek clones. The Windfall Farms vineyard is part of a gorgeous horse ranch in the Paso Robles Creston District that used to belong to Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek and now includes some 100 acres of high quality vineyard. This 100% Grenache Blanc is a classic expression of the grape, fermented in stainless steel. It was bottled in May 2023 under screwcap to preserve it at maximum freshness.
• Tasting Notes: A nose of grapefruit pith, petrichor, chalk, apricot pit and lemongrass. On the palate, pure nectarine and green apple fruit with bright acids, a persistent wet rock minerality, and Grenache Blanc's signature mouth-filling texture and sweet spice. The finish shows notes of mandarin, star anise, and crushed rock. Drink now and over the next few years.
• Production: 825 cases
• List Price: $35 VINsider Price: $28

2021 ESPRIT DE TABLAS BLANC

• Production Notes: the 2021 vintage is shaping up to be one of our strongest ever, with intense flavors that remain fresh and lifted thanks to a harvest season which brought a lovely rhythm of alternating cool and warm periods without any heat spikes or rain. Roussanne thrived in these conditions, and our Esprit Blanc blend included our highest percentage since 2016 (70%) fermented in a mix of oak of various sizes and ages for power and density. To that Roussanne base we added more Picpoul (17%) than Grenache Blanc (10%), for its bright acids and tropicality, and just 2% Bourboulenc and 1% Clairette Blanche for limestoney, citrusy lift. As we have done since 2012, we returned the blend to foudre after it was assembled in May 2022 and aged it through the subsequent harvest before bottling it in December 2022. We've been letting it deepen in bottle ever since.
• Tasting Notes: A powerful nose of new honey and toasted brioche, orange blossom, pineapple core, and a sweet green note reminiscent of tarragon. The palate is intensely Roussanne: fresh pear and beeswax, orange marmalade and chalky minerals. The powerful structure and bright acids dominate the finish, which is just starting to hint at the caramel and nutty depths to come. Drink over the next two decades.
• Production: 1560 cases
• List Price: $60 VINsider Price: $48

2022 PATELIN DE TABLAS ROSÉ

• Production Notes: We're excited to share both our rosés with VINsiders this year. In the spring, we sent members our Mourvedre-based Dianthus, and this fall we're sharing our Provencal-style, Grenache-based Patelin Rosé. Always led by Grenache (67% this year), which provides both bright fruit and refreshing acidity, the wine also includes additions of rich, floral Mourvedre (21%), spicy, electric Counoise (9%), and for the first time, a touch of Vermentino (3%) for its citrusy, minerally lift. Vermentino is a traditional component of many Provencal rosés under its French name Rolle. 90% of the fruit was direct-pressed upon arrival at the winery, with the balance destemmed and let soak for a single work day, then pressed off after about 12 hours. The wine was bottled in January 2023 and we've been enjoying it ever since.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty light peach color. On the nose, juicy aromas of Haribo peach, yellow raspberry, strawberry leaf, and yellow roses. On the palate, juicy with flavors of ripe peach, lime zest, creamy minerality, and a gentle minty lift. The lingering finish has notes of pink grapefruit, bright acids, and salty minerals. Drink now and over the next year.
• Production: 3300 cases
• List Price: $28 VINsider Price: $22.40

2021 GRENACHE

• Production Notes: In a year where every grape showed well, Grenache still stood out, gaining unusual depth and richness to complement its classic flavors of red fruit and spice. For our varietal bottling we as usual chose lots that emphasized Grenache's freshness and avoided riper lots that tend toward higher alcohols. The lots were blended in June 2022 and aged in neutral oak until its bottling in February 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A spicy nose of black cherry, red licorice, black pepper, allspice, and rosemary. The mouth is vibrant with fresh plum and blackberry fruit, bright acids, and a wild juniper berry herbiness adding complexity. There is plenty of Grenache's signature youthful tannic grip on the finish, with notes of plum skin, chocolate truffle, and black licorice. Drink soon to enjoy the youthful fruit and spice, or hold for a decade or more for a smoother experience.
• Production: 970 cases
• List Price: $45 VINsider Price: $36

2021 EN GOBELET

• Production Notes: Our fourteenth En Gobelet, a non-traditional blend all from head-trained, dry-farmed blocks, and mostly from the 12-acre block we call Scruffy Hill, planted in 2005 and 2006 to be a self-sufficient field blend. These lots tend to show more elegance and minerality than our closer-spaced irrigated blocks, although in 2021 the wine shows plenty of power. We chose a blend of 39% Grenache, 29% Mourvedre, 16% Syrah, 11% Counoise, and 5% Tannat, with the Grenache and Counoise providing lift, the Syrah and Tannat providing structure and tannin, and the Mourvedre earth, loam, and ageworthiness. The wine was blended in June of 2022, aged in foudre, and bottled in April 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A lovely deep red color. A savory nose of teriyaki, mocha, pine forest, and (eventually) redcurrant. The palate is seamless with sweeter flavors like cherry and brambly blackberry balanced with savory, loamy warmth and juniper spice. Bright acids and plum skin tannins highlight a long finish of new leather, chocolate, cranberry, and salty minerality. Complex and built for the long term. Decant this if you're drinking it now, or wait and drink any time over the next two decades.
• Production: 861 cases
• List Price: $60 VINsider Price: $48

2021 ESPRIT DE TABLAS

• Production Notes: As always, the Esprit is based on the red fruit and meatiness of Mourvedre (35%). The relatively equal proportions of Grenache (26%, for sweet spice and bright acids) and Syrah (23%, for dark color and savory, tannic richness) are a good indicator of the vintage's overall balance and quality. This also seemed to be a great vintage to lean into three of our more trace varieties, and we used all our Vaccarese (7%, for black fruit and minerality) and Cinsaut (5%, for warm purple fruit and sweet spice) as well as 4% Counoise for vibrancy and wildness. This blend produced something both intense and fresh, complex and yet pure. The wine's components were selected for Esprit, blended in June 2022 and aged a year in foudre before bottling in August 2023.
• Tasting Notes: The nose is deep and inviting, clearly Esprit: new leather, sweet spice, currants and dark chocolate. On the palate, broad and rich, with notes of flourless chocolate cake, black plum, meat drippings, and a spicy, nutty mincemeat pie element. The finish is brambly blackberry, black fig, and milk chocolate, with chewy tannins that promise years of meaty development. Immensely appealing now, but also with the structure and intensity to reward time in the cellar. Enjoy any time in the next 25 years.
• Production: 2950 cases
• List Price: $70 VINsider Price: $56

Two additional wines joined the Lignée de Tablas and Esprit de Tablas Blanc in the white wine selection shipment (members will get two bottles of the Esprit Blanc and two bottles of the Marsanne):

2022 BOURBOULENC

• Production Notes: Our fourth-ever bottling of Bourboulenc, from just our fourth harvest of this relatively obscure Rhone white grape. Bourboulenc is known in France to make wines with bright acids, fresh fruit aromatics, and a distinctive nutty character. In just a few years, it's become a favorite here. We fermented it this year in a single concrete egg, then let it settle. It was bottled in June 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A tropical nose of passion fruit, lychee, fresh almond, wet stone and a warm coconut character that Chelsea identified as surf wax. On the palate, bright, like barely-ripe mango, with additional high-toned fruit elements like mandarin and lemon balm. The finish is more linear, with lemon drop and chalky mineral, and a nice pithy textural bite. Our experience aging Bourboulenc is limited, but we plan to drink ours over the next few years.
• Production: 185 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

2022 MARSANNE

• Production Notes: Marsanne is best known from the northern Rhone, particularly the famed appellation of Hermitage, where it produces wines of legendary elegance and ageworthiness. The 2022 vintage produced lovely Marsanne, which we fermented in 600-gallon foudres to emphasize its texture and give it a hint of oak. Because we thought it so classic and pretty, we reserved a little more than usual for a varietal expression at blending in March of 2023. The wine was bottled in June.
• Tasting Notes: A pretty nose of orange peel and chalky mineral, honeysuckle and acacia wood. The palate is lovely and gentle, with flavors of pineapple and nectarine, cream puff and lemongrass. The finish is bright, with Meyer lemon and warm straw notes. So appealing now that I'm guessing a lot of it will get drunk young, but it should evolve in an interesting way for a decade at least.
• Production: 505 cases
• List Price: $40 VINsider Price: $32

Two additional reds joined the Grenache, En Gobelet and two bottles of the Esprit de Tablas in the red wine selection shipment:

2021 FULL CIRCLE

• Production Notes: The twelfth vintage of our Full Circle Pinot Noir, grown on the small vineyard outside the Haas family's home in Templeton, in the cool (for Paso) Templeton Gap AVA. Its name reflects Robert Haas's career: from a start introducing America to the greatness of Burgundy, through decades focusing on grapes from the Rhone, one of his last acts was to plant Pinot at his home and oversee our first few vintages. The grapes were fermented in one-ton microfermenters, two-thirds de-stemmed and one-third with stems for a more savory profile, punched down twice daily by hand. After pressing, the wine was moved into a mix of one-year-old and two-year-old Marcel Cadet 60-gallon barrels, for a hint of oak. The wine stayed on its lees, stirred occasionally, for 10 months, before being blended and bottled in August 2022. We've aged the wine in bottle for an additional year since then.
• Tasting Notes: An immediately recognizable Pinot Noir nose of cherry cola, sarsaparilla, Chinese five spice and new leather. The palate is bright with cranberry and salted raspberry notes, sweet baking spices and chalky tannins. Drink now and over the next decade.
• Production: 313 cases
• List Price: $50 VINsider Price: $40

2021 MOURVEDRE

• Production Notes: Mourvedre is the one red grape that we try to bottle on its own each year, because we think it is a wonderful grape that too few people know, and one we feel worthy of some proselytizing. The outstanding 2021 vintage produced some of our favorite-ever Mourvedre lots, seemingly equally balanced between Old World-style loamy, meaty elements and the lusher red-fruited, milk chocolate mouth-coating density that we associate with Paso Robles. All our Mourvedre lots were fermented in large wooden tanks and moved to neutral barrels to await blending. The chosen lots were blended in the spring of 2022, then aged in a single foudre until bottling in April 2023.
• Tasting Notes: A deep, rich nose of soy marinade, bay leaf, saddle leather, mocha, and blackcurrant. On the palate, rich with currant and black plum fruit, baker's chocolate, cherry wood, herb-marinated leg of lamb, and white pepper. The long finish shows cocoa powder, dark red fruit, dried rose petals, and a graphite-like minerality that combined with the structural density suggests you could drink this any time in the next 20 years.
• Production: 492 cases
• List Price: $55 VINsider Price: $44

The tasting was a great way to hone in on the character of our two most recent vintages. 2022 is a vintage that shows outstanding vibrancy: clear, delineated flavors and bright acids, with plenty of fruit to back it up. 2021 is a classic year whose combination of low yields and cool harvest temperatures produced wines that all taste like themselves, only more so. Both seem like they'll offer pleasure whether people drink the wines soon or wait. We can't wait to find out what our members think.

If you're a wine club member, we've got a range of options for you to try these wines. We are planning to host a live in-person pickup party on Sunday, October 22nd. Neil, Chelsea, and I will be hosting another virtual pickup party the evening of Friday, October 13th. And we'll again be offering club members who visit the opportunity to choose the shipment wines as their tasting flight between mid-September and early-October. Consider this a "save the date"; we will be putting details on all this on our VINsider News & Updates page and announcing them via email soon.

If you're not a wine club member, and you've read all this way, then why not join us while there's still a chance to get this fall shipment? Details and how to join are at tablascreek.com/wine_club/vinsider_club

Introducing Lignée de Tablas: Single-Vineyard Wines from Tablas Creek Clones around California

Here at Tablas Creek we're pretty cautious about jumping into new projects. In my 20 years we've made one significant addition to the lineup of wines, back in 2010 when we started working with a handful of Paso Robles vineyards to produce our first-ever non-estate wine, the Patelin de Tablas. That decision came after the shock of the 2009 vintage, where the combination of drought and frost reduced our crops by nearly 50% and forced us to choose between keeping our wine club and tasting room supplied and maintaining our presence in the wholesale and export markets. At the same time, the 2008 financial crisis and the recession that followed meant that there were high quality grapes available from Paso Robles vineyards at reasonable prices. We worked out agreements with our first eight growers and we were off.

The addition of the Patelin tier has played out just as I'd hoped, giving us the ability to maintain and expand our presence in the wholesale market, especially in restaurants' by-the-glass lists, while mitigating the peaks and valleys of production that are unavoidable in our frost- and drought-prone climate. The Patelin wines gave the category we're a part of entry-level wines that we were proud to use to introduce new customers to the category, while allowing us to be more selective about what we put into our estate wines. I think the quality of our Cotes de Tablas and varietal wines has never been stronger, in part because we've declassified into Patelin the lots that are pretty and friendly but maybe don't have the intensity or focus we wanted for our estate wines.

An unexpected benefit has been that we feel like we're more integrated into our community after having had the chance over the last decade to work with dozens of the small growers who make up the essential fabric of the Paso Robles wine community. You can get a sense of how much of a pleasure that process has been from the video that we made back in 2017 talking about the people behind Patelin:

The Patelin idea has worked because we've been able to find great sources of the key Rhone grapes, both red and white, here in Paso Robles. And that desire -- to make a wine that represents both our category and our region -- has meant that we've always limited our Patelin sourcing to vineyards in Paso Robles, with preference given to vineyards that have the same clones that we brought in from Beaucastel in the ground. But as a winery who built our reputation on making wines of place, each year there's a certain amount of regret in blending the product of beautiful vineyards together, even if the end result is something we're proud of.

Covid was the catalyst for a new idea. Just as the last economic shock -- the financial crisis and recession that followed, combined with our drought and frost -- opened up the opportunity to make the Patelin wines, we've realized that the challenges we've faced over the last three years point toward another new opportunity. And like in 2007-09, we have a three-year drought cycle (this one beginning in 2020) as a primary catalyst. By 2022 that drought had reached critical levels and its impact on our yields was worsened by our latest-ever spring frost. At the same time, the pandemic fueled a shift in the wine business where in 2020 and 2021 restaurant sales were down sharply and phone, internet, and wine club orders to wineries surged as people stuck close to home by choice or mandate. Together, those changes meant that we saw greater demand than ever before for our estate wines (the bulk of what we sell direct and to our wine club customers) just at the time when our own production was constrained by drought and frost. In the early stages of the pandemic we were able to shift some of our production of the Patelin wines from wholesale to our wine club and tasting room to satisfy the demand there, but that's not an ideal long-term solution. We need those wines in the wholesale market as restaurants have come roaring back. And we think it's more exciting to have the wines that we feature at our tasting room and send to our club members be different from those of our wines that they can find at their local bistro.

Enter Lignée de Tablas. This new tier of wines will debut with the 2022 vintage. It will consist of single-vineyard wines sourced from vineyards planted to Tablas Creek clones, made in small (250-850 case) quantities and sold direct from the winery. There are hundreds of vineyards up and down the West Coast planted with cuttings from the Tablas Creek nursery. In addition to Paso Robles, particularly exciting concentrations of these vineyards can be found in the Sierra Foothills, Santa Barbara County, Sonoma, and up in Washington State. Those other regions have never had the opportunity to be a part of our program... until now. And because our only non-estate wines have been the Patelins, we haven't had the opportunity to celebrate the unique expressions of place from these vineyards. Until now.

My long-term goal is for us to make three or four of these each year, but in 2022 we started with two. We'll be making a Grenache from the Hahn Vineyard in Monterey County, and a Grenache Blanc from Windfall Farms right here in the Creston District of Paso Robles. The Hahn Grenache isn't bottled yet and won't be released until next year, but it's impressive: darker in both color and fruit tone than any Grenache we make here, with firm tannins, lovely fruit, and the distinctive spice you get from cool-climate Grenache. The Windfall Farms Grenache Blanc is equally lovely, with the grape's classic citrus and green apple fruit and a pretty hint of sweet spice. It went into bottle a few weeks ago and will be included in our fall VINsider Wine Club shipments:

Lignée, if you're wondering, means "lineage" in French. So Lignée de Tablas means, in essence, the lineage of Tablas Creek. All these wines will be made exclusively from Tablas clones. For design, we're keeping with the basic look and feel of our current labels, but identifying the vineyard name and the AVA on the front label. For color scheme, instead of the gold, silver, bronze, or copper foil of our current wines, we're using a black foil that hearkens back to the Las Tablas Estates Glenrose Vineyard experiment that we released in 2002. For price, we're planning to offer the wines between what we sell our estate varietal wines for and what we charge for the Patelin de Tablas. For the Windfall Farms Grenache Blanc, that will be $35 list, with the normal wine club and case savings off that. The label (you'll have to imagine the sparkle of the black foil):

As for the wine, it's delicious. It was a favorite in our blending trials of the 2022 whites. My notes at the concluding tasting of the week were:

A pretty lifted nose nose of white pepper and citrus pith. On the palate, more citrus, with a green citrus leaf element adding complexity. With solid texture, good acids, and a little sweet spice on the finish, this should be a nice addition to the lineup!

For the 2023 vintage, we're venturing even further afield, and have been able to secure commitments from two great vineyards in the Sierra Foothills (Syrah from Shake Ridge and Grenache and Mourvedre from Fenaughty) as well as Roussanne from our friends at Zaca Mesa Vineyard down in Santa Barbara County. These are renowned vineyards whose fruit appears in some of our favorite California wines. That's one of the things I know we're all most excited about. Until this point we've set ourselves the task of exploring Paso Robles through the Rhone lens. We do that each year with our estate wines and through Patelin. But there are amazing Rhone-style vineyards all over California. When we go to Hospice du Rhone or Rhone Rangers, one of the things that is the most fun is to taste what our favorite producers from other regions are doing with these clones that we brought to America. With Lignée we'll be able to be a part of those explorations.

Still, it feels fitting that the first wine that we'll be releasing under the Lignée label will be from Paso Robles, and from Grenache Blanc. After all, Grenache Blanc is probably the biggest success story to come out of the Tablas Creek nursery. When we brought in our first vine cuttings, there wasn't a single Grenache Blanc vine planted in California. Thirty years later, it has leapfrogged both Roussanne and Marsanne to become the second-most-planted white Rhone variety in California (after Viognier) at 618 acres. It may not be a threat to knock Chardonnay off its throne any time soon, but its acreage is growing fast and its growing patterns incredibly well suited to California. We're excited that with the launch of the Lignée de Tablas we get to tell one more piece of Grenache Blanc's story.

But for us the most exciting piece of the Lignée de Tablas program is that we'll get to make new wines of place that will allow us to explore some of the other places whose wines we've long admired. There's nothing more fundamental to the lineage of Tablas Creek than that. We're looking forward to sharing these new expressions with you.

The Fall 2023 VINsider "Collector's Edition" Shipment: Drought Vintages Shine a Decade Later

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 really three (sometimes four) phases each vintage goes through. In its youth, within a few years of bottling, you get lush fruit, medium-body and texture, and tropical notes, with underpinnings of mineral and cedary structure. The current release (our 2020 Esprit Blanc) is showing in that phase, as is the 2021 that we're releasing this fall. 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 usually the phase the Esprit Blanc is in when we send it out to Collector's Edition members. Then 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 isn't usually 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. We've never been able to wait long enough to release an Esprit Blanc to Collector's Edition members in this phase... until this year. Please welcome the 2013 Esprit de Tablas Blanc. This wine is just at the beginning of its current stage and should sail on another decade or more, gaining nuttiness and complexity with time.

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, and sweet spice notes. Then there's a stage where the fruit calms down, the tannins 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 2015 Esprit de Tablas is in right now. The wine has greater complexity and elegance 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, given the elegance of the 2015 vintage from the get-go) 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 2026-27, but that's just a guess for now. And it might not happen. 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 fades.  

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 came from vintages marked by our 2012-2016 drought:

• 2013 was still in the early stages of the drought, and while the vines set a large crop, we expended a lot of effort reducing crop levels to make sure we didn't overextend the vineyard knowing it had limited water to draw on. That was followed by a classic, warm Californian summer that combined with our reduced yields (2.66 tons/acre in the end) for our earliest-ever finish to harvest on October 7th. [You can read my recap of the 2013 vintage here.]
• By 2015, the vines were really struggling, and crop levels started low and were further reduced by a very cold May, which led to a very light fruit set in our earlier grape varieties like Viognier and Syrah. The year continued in a whipsaw between significantly warmer-then-normal and cooler-than-normal months, both of which can slow ripening, and despite the low yields and a very warm October we didn't finish picking until October 29th. Our overall yields were some of the lowest we've ever seen at 2.01 tons/acre. [My recap of the 2015 vintage can be found here.]

Despite their differences, the two vintages manifested in related ways. 2013 was more classic than blockbuster. It produced wines with pure, well-defined flavors, medium density, and lots of spiciness and minerality. 2015 produced some of the most ethereal wines we've made, with noteworthy minerality, high-toned elegance, and intense flavors with no sense of weight. That said, both 2013 Esprit Blanc and 2015 Esprit showed a lovely balance of fruit and mineral, structure and openness, and richness and elegance when we tasted them yesterday. The pair:

My tasting notes:

• 2013 Esprit de Tablas Blanc: Still a youthful pale gold color. A savory nose of nuts, flinty mineral, lanolin and lemongrass, with sweeter notes of baked apple emerging slowly with time. The mouth is creamy and textural, like salted custard with notes of citrus pith and dried pineapple. Very long on the finish with notes of grilled, salted lemon. Still shows lovely lift and brightness around that savory, textural core. 71% Roussanne, 21% Grenache Blanc, and 8% Picpoul Blanc. Would be amazing with a chicken simply roasted with lemon and herbs.
• 2015 Esprit de Tablas: An appealing nose of black cherry, cocoa powder, sweet applewood, black pepper, and meat in a soy marinade. The mouth is clean and pure, with vibrant notes of black raspberry and chalky mineral, meat drippings and a salty umami note. The tannins are present and firm but not aggressive. The finish shows notes of boysenberry and salty dark chocolate. 49% Mourvedre, 25% Grenache, 21% Syrah, 5% Counoise. Would shine with anything from a simple roasted rack of lamb to duck to a savory pasta with wild mushrooms.

The complete Collector's Edition shipment is awfully exciting, at least to me, between the combination of the library vintages, all the 2021s -- which I'm convinced will go down among our best vintages ever -- and the debut of a new wine and new program for us, which I'll be sharing information about in a couple of weeks:

• 2 bottles of 2015 Esprit de Tablas
• 1 bottle of 2013 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
• 3 bottles of 2021 Esprit de Tablas
• 2 bottles of 2021 Esprit de Tablas Blanc
• 1 bottle of 2021 En Gobelet
• 1 bottle of 2021 Grenache
• 1 bottle of 2022 Patelin de Tablas Rosé
• 1 bottle of 2022 Lignée de Tablas Windfall Farms Grenache Blanc

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, one way or the other, 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, 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.

Those of you who are members, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  And thank you, as always, for your patronage. We are grateful, and don't take it for granted.

Elevating the virtual experience thanks to Master the World

By Ian Consoli

It is no mystery that I am a huge fan of virtual events for wine club members. We introduced semi-annual virtual pickup parties to accommodate the release of our wine club shipments in fall 2020. We started these virtual events during COVID when we had no choice, but elected to continue them because their benefits in access, intimacy, and convenience were significant. Wine Club members from around the country continue to express their gratitude through emails and social media comments for allowing them to connect with us from afar. Viewership of the events remains consistent, participation remains high, and the conversations started by viewer questions continue to bring value. From my conclusion in a blog I wrote in 2021 on the virtual pickup parties:

We're excited to continue to host this kind of event in the future. We're meeting our members where they are, we're teaching them new recipes, and we're giving them the opportunity to interact with the proprietor, winemaker, and chef.

All-in-all, we can say the virtual events are a success, and we look forward to continuing them. Today, I want to highlight a decision we made that elevated the experience and made the continuation of the series possible: producing tasting packs with Master the World.

It was always clear that we needed an option for guests to taste along with us from home. The first virtual pickup party we did was in the fall and aligned with the latest release of our Esprit de Tablas and Esprit de Tablas Blanc. Those are the only wines we bottle in 375ml packaging, primarily for distribution to restaurants. They worked perfectly as a two-pack for this initial virtual event – not least because restaurants were largely closed at that point, so we had 375ml bottles to spare – but when it came time for our spring shipment, we had no small format bottles to work with. As with any of our virtual tastings, we could invite attendees to pick one Tablas Creek wine to enjoy with the broadcast (from their shipment or not), but we needed something more.

We evaluated repackaging our 750mL bottles into 187mL but faced four significant hurdles.

• Technology: rebottling wines and having them emerge in good shape is a challenge that requires the purchase of specialized equipment and comes with a learning curve.
• Labor: rebottling would pull our cellar team away from their tasks for one to two full days. There's the cost to pay employees for those days and an opportunity cost of what else they would have done.
• Packaging: small batches of anything are expensive. Having to source new bottles and screwcaps, print new labels, and make sure that everything was compliant with the TTB was a non-trivial challenge, and expensive to boot.
• Shipping: the sample kits we proposed must ship around the country. That meant sourcing shipping boxes, negotiating shipping prices, and navigating different states' restrictions on bottle-size limits. Another hurdle for staying compliant.

That is when Master the World (MTW) came on our radar. Founded by Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein and Wine Business pro Limeng Stroh, MTW was created to help sommeliers studying for exams to taste wines from around the world without having to deal with the cost and challenge of sourcing full bottles. To facilitate this, MTW rebottles 750 mL bottles to 187 mL format and builds and ships tasting kits all over the country. Well, that sounded exactly like what were are looking for. Plus, they're pretty darn cute!

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After a call with the founders, we had a solution on our hands. Master the World has a system they developed where every bottle gets tested to ensure it is sound. They rebottle under a layer of inert gas, so the wine gets into the 187ml bottles in good shape. They solved our labor issues by taking on the entire process. All we needed to do was send a few cases of each of the wines in our VINsider Classic Shipment to their facility in Northern California, and they took it from there. They took on the TTB for label approval, and as of spring 2022, they even started making custom labels that match our full-size bottles. The kits sell through Master the World, not Tablas Creek. That allows them to handle all the shipping and compliance, and their licenses enable them to ship to even more states than we can.

We saw an opportunity to allow our virtual attendees to taste all six wines in our classic shipment and went for it. The kits sell for $99, which is manageable for our members and allows us to break even between the cost of wine and MTW's services. Guests purchased all 100 kits we made the first time through Master the World and the 80-kit runs we did for subsequent virtual pickup parties. We found a solution by finding the right partner, and we are delighted with the results for our members.

Our next Virtual Pickup Party is March 24^th, 2023, and the newest set of tasting kits are available now through Master the World's website.