 So, he would go to these regions, talk to the
locals, try to find out who was preeminent in that area, if there was
someone who was, and then work out a relationship with them and
introduce their wines into the US market and try to introduce the region
at the same time.
He went to Châteauneuf du Pape for the first time
in 1963 and met the Perrin family then, at
a point when there were only three Châteauneuf du Papes that were even
doing their own
estate bottling; everyone else was selling their wine to the
cooperatives, because there was no market for estate bottled Châteauneuf du Pape. So, he
started working with Jacques Perrin, and eventually after he died
relatively young in the
early ‘70s, with his sons, Jean-Pierre and François Perrin and
introduced to the US market,
first Beaucastel and then La Vieille Ferme and then the other line of
Perrin wines, and they
would go on trips around the US promoting their French wines, and
California was obviously
an important part of these trips, and after every trip to California,
they would come back
talking about how much the landscape, the sense of place, the light, the
air reminded them
of the southern Rhône. And, at the same time, they were kind of confused
as to why no one
was planting Rhône varietals there, so they started talking at some
point about doing a
Châteauneuf du Pape-styled project together in California. They started
talking about it as
early as the late 1970s.
It took them a while to get everything together, to get off the ground,
to get resources
together, but in ’87, they put together a partnership where the two
families were equal
partners and started looking for the right spot, and they looked on and
off for the next two
years, as far north as the northern border of Mendocino, looked down
through Sonoma, Napa,
Contra Costa County, Sierra Foothills, Monterey, San Luis Obispo County,
Santa Barbara, all
the way down to Ventura, and ended up choosing a spot on a 120 acre
former cattle ranch in
the northwestern corner of the Paso Robles appellation. We picked this
area because of the
soils; there are limestone soils there that are quite rare in
California. There’s also a
really long growing season because of how far south we are and a huge
swing in temperature
between day and night. It’s very hot in the day during the summer,
routinely in the upper
90s (to) low 100s, but quite cold at night, normally a 45 to 50 degree
swing in temperature
between day and night.
 So, they took new cuttings of all of the most important traditional
Rhône varieties from Beaucastel, new cuttings of Mourvèdre, Syrah,
Grenache and Counoise for
reds, and Roussanne, Marsanne, Viognier and Grenache Blanc for whites and brought them into
the country, which
involved a three-year quarantine process, and then built a grapevine
nursery on site to
propagate those vines for grafting and for use in our vineyards. The
vines came into
quarantine in the winter of ’89-90 and we got them out in ’92; we got
our first vines in the
ground in ’94 and our first crop in ’97, which was when we built the
winery and launched the
Tablas Creek label.
Since we started, everything has been done to try to create wines that
are about the place
in which they are grown, reflected through these grape varieties, so
from the beginning, we
have used only estate fruit, we never bought any grapes. Also, the
vineyard is certified
organic, and has been since we started; Beaucastel is also organic and
has been since 1964.
To that end, we started out focusing on blends, figuring that this is
what these grapes are
naturally comfortable with, and we’ve done that. We’ve split from doing
just a single red
wine and a single white wine the way that we did in the beginning into
doing two main reds
and two main whites. So, we call our signature wines each year the
Esprit de Beaucastel; we
do a red and a white version of those, and that’s based consciously
after the Beaucastel
model, so white based on Roussanne, red based on Mourvèdre, designed to
be rich, powerful
and long lived. And then we do a Côtes de Tablas red and white, which
are designed to be
more Côtes du Rhône-ish in style, the white based on Viognier, the red
based on Grenache,
sort of pure fresh and bright and ready to drink right away.
We also do in small quantity a few single varietals that make it into
limited distribution;
we do a single varietal Roussanne and Grenache Blanc for whites, and a
Mourvèdre and Syrah
for reds, and we do this in quantities of around 500 cases each. Our
total production is
about 15,000 cases, broken down to maybe 60% red, 35% white and then
just a little bit of
rosé.
We’re planted in limestone, this white, chalky crumbly stuff; it’s the
same bedrock as what
they have in Beaucastel, but at Beaucastel, they obviously have those galets,
those river rocks
that sit on the top, and at Tablas Creek, we don’t. We’re not in a
valley, we’re in the
hills, so we have a little bit of topsoil on top of that limestone, but
not much. It’s
pretty rugged landscape. It used to be a cattle ranch because that’s all
that grows. You
can’t grow vegetables out there, the soil’s not rich enough. You get
enough rainfall to
support the grapevines dry farmed, but it’s only for six months of the
year, so it rains
(our entire annual component, which is about 30 inches per year) between
the middle of
November and the middle of April. It’s sunny and dry for the rest of the
year, which is a
real luxury, because we don’t have to worry about rain during harvest,
we don’t have to
worry about mildew, we don’t have to worry about lots of stuff that’s a
problem in most
other places. But if we had gravelly or sandy soil, they wouldn’t retain
the moisture to
give back to the grapevines over the summer. With this limestone-clay,
it’s very porous, so
it soaks up all of the rainfall and gradually gives it back, so it’s a
perfect match for
what we want to do.
GH: Do you have all the thirteen varietals growing now that are legal in
Châteauneuf du Pape?
Not yet, some of them are still in quarantine, because we didn’t decide
until about three
years ago that we wanted to bring over all of the really obscure ones, the
Bourboulencs
and the Clairettes and the Muscardins, Vaccarese,
Terret Noir, those
that even the Perrins
can’t necessarily talk about with much confidence (as to) what they’re really
like, we decided to
finally bring those in three years ago. We took new cuttings, we brought
them into
quarantine, and they’re still in quarantine because they were found to
have viruses and
they’re cleaning them up. We will eventually have all thirteen, but for
now, we have nine,
including two that aren’t technically Châteauneuf du Pape varieties.
Viognier and Marsanne
are permitted in Côtes du Rhône, but not in Châteauneuf du Pape. Having been updated on the history of Tablas Creek, Jason then took me
through a quick tour
of the current Esprit de Beaucastel and Côtes de Tablas wines; here are my
snapshot impressions:
2004 Côtes de Tablas Blanc, 55% Viognier, 29% Marsanne, 8%
Grenache Blanc, 8%
Roussanne, $22, 14.5% alc.: Medium straw to pale gold in color, with
pleasant (but not over
the top) floral overtones to the pretty peach and melon flavors and
aromas; nicely balanced
and not too ripe. Done essentially in stainless
steel; a little bit of the Grenache Blanc spends a month or two in
barrel when it goes through malolactic (fermentation), but (they’re) old
barrels, it doesn’t have any new component at all, and the richness that
you get out of it is just the natural richness of the place and of the
fruit itself.– JH Find this wine
2004 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc, 65% Roussanne, 30% Grenache
Blanc, 5% Picpoul
Blanc, $35, 14.7%: Medium straw in color, with a nice floral bouquet of
peach and orange
blossom, shaded with some mineral; medium full bodied, with flavors
reminiscent of peach,
melon and a little honey, which are kept moving along with good, focused
acids that Jason
attributes to the Picpoul Blanc, adding that this excellent wine should
offer 8-10 years of
aging potential. Find this wineWith the Esprit de Beaucastel, we based it on Roussanne traditionally
since we started,
because we like the richness and the spice and the longevity that it
gives you, but we’ve
found that Viognier has not been a particularly good complement for
Roussanne; it’s pretty
different from Roussanne. They’re not typically blended in their own
valley. We’ve found
that Viognier and Marsanne have a lot more affinity, whereas with
Roussanne, the thing that
gives it the best counterpoint to that Roussanne richness is the
Grenache Blanc, which has
brighter acidity and a rich mid-palate mouthfeel which balances the
back-of-the-palate
richness that Roussanne has. And so in creating the Côtes de Tablas, we
wanted a place that
Viognier could really shine, and so that’s the leading varietal. We give
it some Marsanne
to give it weight, to give it mid-palate, to give it a little more ageability, because
Viogniers tend to fall off so fast when they’re pure, so it gives it
that little bit of
melon character to go with the peach that you get from the Viognier.
Marsanne also brings
out mineral very well; we feel that Viognier needs that mineral
character in order to be in
balance. Even if you have acidity, if you don’t have mineral in Viognier,
it’s sort of
one-dimensional. So most of our Marsanne and most of our Viognier goes
into the Côtes de
Tablas every year, and then we have just a little bit of the most
floral, prettiest
Roussanne and Grenache Blanc, but even that gives it a little more
structure. – JH
2004 Côtes de Tablas, 64% Grenache, 16% Syrah, 13% Counoise, 7% Mourvèdre,
$22, 14.8% alc.: Ruby dark garnet in color, showing perfumed dark plum,
berry and black
cherry kissed with a hint of violet, all of which follows through on the
palate with an
earthy base; with good structure, balance and length, this will perform
well with a variety
of red meats, and would be nice to sip while watching a Red Wings hockey
game as well! Find this wine
2004 Esprit de Beaucastel, 50% Mourvèdre, 27% Syrah,
17% Grenache, 6% Counoise, $35, 14.5% alc.: Deep, dark garnet in color, with attractive
flavors and aromas of
black currant, black plum, blackberry, black cherry and a nice hint of
chocolate and a
subtle floral component; rich and round, without any sense of heaviness.
Lush, with
excellent structure, a fine sense of balance in every way and great
promise for further
development. Find this wine
With the reds, we have the same model that we have with the whites; the Côtes de Tablas is
designed to be more approachable when it’s younger, and we base it on
Grenache. We want
that sort of licorice-y, spicy Grenache fruit. Both of these ‘04s are
brand new releases,
so they’re still quite young. With the Côtes de Tablas, we want that
more traditional Rhône
Valley character; the southern Rhône is so Grenache dominant that we’ve
been wanting for a
while to make a wine based on Grenache. We also feel that Grenache, more
than anything
else, has benefited from the vine age; when it was young, we really
struggled with Grenache;
we weren’t happy with it until 2003. In each year since then, we’ve been
very happy with
it, and ’05 is actually the first year that we think we might do a
single varietal Grenache;
we think its got the balance to stand on its own. The Perrins have told
us from the
beginning that you can’t evaluate Grenache until the vines are about ten
years old. I also
think were learning a little bit more about how to crop it, how to keep
it ripening evenly,
how to keep its tannins from becoming too aggressive. This has some of
those Grenache front
palate tannins (Mourvedre is mid-palate and Syrah is back-of-palate),
and those tend to be
relatively young resolving tannins, rather than Syrah tannins, which can
take a decade to
evolve. But we want some of that bite to it, we want a little bit of
structure, because
Grenache always has so much fruit, and always has lots of spice that you
need some structure
in order to make a rounded wine.
So then, contrast that to the Esprit de Beaucastel red, where we
base it on Mourvedre, rather than Grenache or Syrah; the Mourvedre gives
it sort of a dark red fruit, the currant, plum and dark cherry and a
little bit of a bittersweet chocolate and mocha character that we find
really appealing. It also gives it structure to age, it gives it that
mid-palate richness, and then we use a good chunk of Syrah for mineral,
for black fruit, for spice and for some of that back-of-palate tannin,
but not too much, and then the Grenache and the Counoise help open it up
and make it more approachable when it's younger, give it good acidity
and add some other spice notes. For us, Syrah is the most mineral of
any of the red grapes that we grow, so using some of the Syrah in
all of our blends really allows the minerality to come out.–
JH
These wines are all very appealing, and among all of their strengths, I
was struck most of all with their great balance. This impression would
be reinforced and amplified with six more wines that Jason sent to us a
week or so later; he’d read our comments on
12 Wines from the
Perrin Family, and wanted to get our reaction to the whole
Tablas Creek line. We let them rest for a week before tasting five of
them with
Bennett
Traub, who was back in the neighborhood on one of his periodic
business trips. We had the Rosé a few days later. The ’05 Roussanne and
Grenache Blanc are so new, they haven’t been added to the Tablas Creek
website as of this writing.
2005 Tablas Creek Roussanne, $27, 14.3% alc.: Pale
gold in color, with lovely flavors and aromas of yellow melons, apples
and pears; as I taste this, I really get a sense of the consistent style
that runs through all of these wines. It’s very smooth textured, with an
elegant personality, almost masking the good acidity that keeps
everything moving right along. A very fine example of California
Roussanne at its best. Find this wine
2005 Tablas Creek Grenache Blanc, $27, 15.3% alc.:
Pale to medium straw in color, with green apple flavors and aromas
shaded with a note of melon and some subtle minerality, all with the
same elegant, smooth textured, well mannered personality, with just
enough acidity to make it work. If it doesn’t have the impact of the
Roussanne, it’s perfectly fine taken on its own terms, and would work
well with light to middle weight seafood and chicken prepared any number
of ways. Find this wine
Both whites were enjoyed with Kim's butternut squash and sun dried tomato soup
with basil cream and Parmesan Frico Taco with arugula greens.
 2004 Tablas Creek Mourvèdre, $35, 14.3% alc.: The
second 100% Mourvèdre bottled by Tablas creek. Dark garnet in color,
fading to very pink at the rim, this exudes a pretty perfume of dark
plum and berry that echoes and expands on the palate with some subtle
earth, a nice note of leather and a dusting of cocoa powder; so elegant
and impeccably balanced, and while it has the structure to age for some
years, it’s eminently drinkable with some time in a decanter, shows no
heat whatsoever and pairs marvelously with grill roasted leg of lamb
with a shallot mushroom wine sauce, Comte potato gratin and haricot
verts. Bennett cooed, “I love Mourvèdre,” adding that this one is
“rather gentle,” and “certainly more fruit forward than their (the
Perrin’s) French wines, but that’s to be expected.” The folks at Tablas
Creek expect this wine to shut down for a few years around the end of
2007, and then drink well for a decade or more once it re-emerges. Find this wine
2004 Tablas Creek Syrah, $35, 14.5% alc.: The second
national release of a Tablas Creek Syrah, made from one foudre and a few
barrels reserved for this bottling. Dark garnet in color, fading to pink
at the rim, and while the nose doesn’t “scream” Syrah, it states it
calmly, with good manners and character, offering aromas of dark plum
and blackberry with overtones of smoke and violets that follow through
beautifully on the palate, again with some subtle earth and in the same
“house style,” restrained and yet expressive at the same time, rich and
yet not at all overdone. This wine pairs equally well with the grilled
leg of lamb, and is so harmonious, it doesn’t need another day in the
cellar if you give it some air, but it certainly promises to improve
with further aging. In that regard, Bennett suggests that there are
things lurking in both of these reds that will emerge with a year or two
of development, and we’ll certainly check back in to see what will
evolve. Find this wine
After dinner, our curiosities got the better of us, and we just had to
see what the following wine was all about. From the Tablas Creek
website: “In exceptional vintages, Tablas Creek Vineyard produces small
quantities of Panoplie: a Mourvèdre-based cuvee from meticulously
selected grapes, made in the model of Château de Beaucastel's Hommage á
Jacques Perrin.”
2004 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel Panoplie, 69%
Mourvèdre, 21% Grenache, 10% Syrah, $95, 14.6% alc.: This dark
garnet colored blend gives up big, rich dark plum and berry on the nose,
along with accents of well integrated oak, noticeably more than with the
other reds; Bennett added an impression of “apricot pit on the nose,
really interesting, kind of like Copain’s Zinfandel.” Bigger and richer
in the mouth than either the Mourvèdre or Syrah, being sweet, but not
too sweet, it delivers complex flavors of leathery dark plum,
blackberry, dusty cocoa, coffee, toast and a little dark chocolate. Even
without the benefit of decanting, this is remarkably approachable right
from the get-go, showing the same smooth texture and lovely balance that
is the hallmark of this producer; having said that, it’s also the one
that most obviously needs further time in the cellar to reveal
everything that it has, and it has the structure to take it some years
down the road. The lamb was gone by the time we got to this, but it
proved to be very enjoyable to sip while talking and listening to music
after dinner. Find this wine
2005 Tablas Creek Rosé, 60% Mourvèdre, 30% Grenache, 10% Counois, $27, 14.8% alc.: This strawberry pink rosé is the last of
the wines we were sent that we tried, and, once again, the first thing
we were struck with was its marvelous texture and balance; it’s a little
stingy on the nose, but in the mouth, it’s all about rich strawberry and
raspberry flavors on a medium to medium full bodied frame that are
neither earthy and bone dry like some of their European counterparts,
nor excessively fruity and ripe in a left coast kind of way. To steal a
phrase from a book on Zen I read in a previous lifetime, pretty much
everything about this wine is “just so.” There’s good underlying acidity
here, and good length on the finish, and like any good rosé worth its
grapes, it’s friendly to a wide variety of foods; we enjoyed it with a
dinner frittata made with Cowgirl Creamery Triple Cream Cheese, home
cured lardons, onions, orange pepper and dried tomatoes, and afterwards,
we continued to sip and savor it. It’s as good a domestic pink as we’ve
ever had the pleasure to encounter. Find this wine
 Needless to say, we enjoyed these wines immensely, and why bother trying
to find more superlatives to express that again? The only thing I would
add here is in response from a comment from Byron Riffe to our 12 from
the Perrin Family feature last month: “The Perrin family are also
partners in Tablas Creek winery in Paso Robles, Ca. where they are
dedicated to making Rhône style wines. I wonder if you have already or
plan to compare those wines to the ones from Rhône. I, for one, would be
very interested in your comments.”
To answer Byron, I would reiterate my reply then: I've tasted enough of
the Tablas Creek wines to tell you that any comparison isn't fair,
because they're still California wines (and I don't mean that in a
negative way), even with the Perrin connection and Beaucastel clones,
and they show it. I’d now take that a step further and offer that the
Perrin and Beaucastel wines in the same price ranges are more
rambunctious in their youth, with more aggressive tannins and acids, and
generally more muscular personalities, while the Tablas Creek wines are
more elegant, refined and accessible when young. The Rhônes show more
earth, dirt and leather, and although the California cousins can also
reflect those attributes to a lesser extent, the emphasis is more on the
rich, lovely fruit. Are the Rhônes better than the Robles, or vice
versa? Absolutely not, but they do make for a fascinating contrast and
comparison, and hopefully, we’ll be able to follow the progress of not
only the wines presented in these two reports, but also
some of those that came before and the ones that are yet to be made.
Reporting from Day-twah,
Bastardo
Other Recent Wine Explorations
Bubbles In October
6 From Stark-Condé
8 From Qupé
Following Up
With Fisher, Ladera and Schweiger
QPR All Stars: MAN Vintners
& Marqués de Cáceres
12 From the
Perrin Family
Harvest Images from Berthet-Rayne
Wicked Couch & Spit
Back to November '06 Index
Back to the Underground
Index
Back to the Top
© George Heritier November, 2006
|
ne
of the perks of my day gig is that, occasionally, some really
interesting in-the-biz-type folks stop in and pay a visit with samples
of wines that I need to get acquainted with in order to do what I do.
Such was the case a few weeks ago when