Tablas Creek Roussanne Paso Robles 2019

Description

Tablas Creek was established in 1987 by two leading wine families: the Perrin family, founders of Château de Beaucastel and the Haas family, owners of the US importer Vineyard Brands. After many years travelling the States together to promote the Perrin wines they agreed that California’s Mediterranean climate was ideally suited to the Rhône’s native grape varieties. In 1989, they purchased a 50-hectare parcel in west Paso Robles. The team imported cuttings from the Beaucastel estate and established their own nursery, with grafting facilities, to propagate their cuttings which were used to replant their vineyards. The estate has been certified organic since 2003 and biodynamic since 2017. Reinforcing the estate’s commitment to sustainability, Tablas Creek became the first winery to attain Regenerative Organic Certification in 2020. Their intention is to ensure the purest vineyard and vintage expression.

Tablas Creek Roussanne is produced from 100% estate grown fruit. Located twelve miles from the Pacific Ocean and with an average altitude of 450 metres above sea level, the estate’s hot and sunny days are tempered by cool nights, resulting in fully ripe grapes with fresh acidity. The site is dry-farmed, and certified organic and biodynamic. Its shallow, rocky and limestone-rich soils are based on the same geologic origins as the Beaucastel vineyards and the estate vineyard was planted with cuttings imported from the Beaucastel estate.

The team selected various lots from their estate vineyards to produce this varietal bottling. Roughly 55% was fermented in foudres, 35% from neutral oak puncheons, and 10% in small new barriques. The selected lots were blended in April 2019 and then aged for a further nine months in foudres.

'This has a medium golden colour with oily tears running slowly down the glass; toasted almonds and nuts, along with ripe mango and red apple, honey, wax, subtle dried herbs are mingling with vanilla and baking spice. The palate is dry and feels full fairly full-bodied but it's actually full of extract and has fabulous intensity at only 12.5%abv. A stony minerality and subtle white pepper spice on the finish, this is a versatile wine with or without food.' Anja Breit, Philglas & Swiggot