Tasting treat at Tablas Creek

There are many wineries that make a good wine every now and then and there are some that make great wine once in a while, and then there are a handful of wineries that make good and great wine consistently season after season. One of those that do good and great season in and season out is Tablas Creek Vineyard.  On a recent WineWalkabout Paso Robles tasting tour (with special guest Frog) Tablas Creek was pulled from the hat as one of the stops. On what was a lovely warm to almost hot Saturday afternoon we all rolled up to the tasting room to give their wines the once over and critique. As it turned out Frog has been a long term club member as he believes that Tablas Creek is his French Rhone Connection. We were very impressed with Frogs French Rhone collection but in our typical irreverent attitude we figured we would be the judge of that, and so in we went.

A fairly large with clean modern style tasting room greets you as you enter. Our little group were directed into a side room bar for tasting which although open to the main room felt a bit like a private tasting. Kiwi figured they heard our snarky commentary before we went in and wanted to get us half way out. The tasting room lady who drew the short straw and got to deal with us did a fantastic job of educating us about the history of the winery and the philosophy behind the wines, as well as some of the technical stuff. The wines were, well they were what we were told they would be. Great!

Tablas Creek has an interesting history that we will just quote from their website so as not to misstate the information. “Tablas Creek Vineyard is the result of a decades-long friendship between the Perrin family of Château de Beaucastel and Robert Haas, longtime importer and founder of Vineyard Brands. The families created a partnership in 1985 and in 1989 purchased a 120-acre property in the hilly Las Tablas district of west Paso Robles for its similarities to Châteauneuf du Pape: limestone soils, a favorable climate, and rugged terrain.

The partners imported the traditional varietals grown on the Perrins’ celebrated estate, including Mourvèdre, Grenache Noir, Syrah, and Counoise for reds, and Roussanne, Viognier, Marsanne, and Grenache Blanc for whites. These imported vines passed a rigorous 3-year USDA testing program, were propagated and grafted in our on-site nursery, and used to plant our organic estate vineyard.”

Frog was very up on this history and over a cool canteen of water imparted some additional history and some interesting stories. Cool canteen you ask, yes cool canteen. Tablas Creek takes the organic, green and carbon footprint stuff pretty seriously and one of the neat things they have done is provide their visitors access to a cool drink of filtered water in stainless steel canteens that they then clean each night and reuse saving the landfills from copious amounts of discarded plastic bottles. Tablas Creek Vineyards received their organic certification in January, 2003 and continue to explore how to better respect their place as evidenced when they began farming much of the vineyard Biodynamically in 2010. Look go to Tablas Creek Vineyards and taste their wine and experience their hospitality and talk to them about their vineyard practices and the why’s of how they make their wine and experience a premium winery with a unique story. Look, don’t take our word for it just go and enjoy good and great wine from a premium winery or to quote one of those Wine something magazines "a world class winery that excels at so many things". Go on, get out there and tell em WineWalkabout sent you! We recommend you do(Frog to)!

Located at 9339 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles, CA 93446 and open daily from 10:00AM to 5:00PM.

Happy Travel Adventures,

Cheers,

WineWalkabout

Kiwi & Koala