As soon as we had booked our flights for our two week sojourn on the Left Coast last April and May, we determined that one of our must-visits would have to be Tablas Creek, in Paso Robles. We’ve made no secret of our admiration for the wines of this collaborative effort between the Haas and Perrin families, and General Manager Jason Haas was most gracious in accommodating our request to tour the property and winery. We tasted through more than fifteen wines, one of which was a barrel sample of the 2008 Esprit de Beaucastel Rouge. Its potential was obvious, but it was just a barrel sample, after all, and we didn’t get to spend much time with it.

Fast forward to last week, when we received a sample of the same for review from our friends at Vineyard Brands, both Kim and this taster were mucho impressed with what is in the bottle.

2008 Tablas Creek Paso Robles Esprit de Beaucastel Rouge, 38% Mourvèdre, 30% Grenache, 26% Syrah, 6% Counoise, 14.5% alc., $50: Showing a clean, dark color, this is big, rich and primary, with flavors and aromas of dark plums and berries shaded with some smoke and underbrush. Full bodied, well structured and beautifully balanced, this is already drinking amazingly well in its youth, a delight from the first sip to the last, but it has the stuffing for the long haul; the folks at Tablas Creek say you can enjoy it over the next few decades and I have no reason to doubt their advice. Find this wine

All of the grapes grown on the Tablas Creek estate are certified organic, and those which went into this wine were fermented on native yeasts in open and closed stainless steel fermenters. The components were then pressed, moved into barrel, blended and aged in 1,200-gallon French oak foudres. Bottled this past July, 3,000 cases were produced. We can’t find enough good things to say about it and give it our highest recommendation. The winery recommends pairing with game, dark fowl (duck), richly flavored stews, lamb and Asian preparation of red meats (beef stir fry), and we can testify that it’s also most complementary to burgers grilled medium rare with a generous helping of smoke.

Reporting from Day-twah,

geo t.

Related posts:

1. 2007 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel Rouge
2. Exploring the Beaucastel/Tablas Creek Connection
3. A Morning At Tablas Creek
4. Blog Watch: An Interesting Solution for Slow-to-Ripen Grapes @ Tablas Creek
5. Tasting Tablas Creek in Charlottesville