Tablas Creek Esprit de Tablas Rouge 2017

Tablas Creek Esprit de Tablas Rouge

Region: California, USA

Vintage: 2017

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah, Counoise

ABV: 14.5%

Intense aromas of wood smoke, black cherry and violet entice on the nose. The palate displays Grenache's juicy red fruit profile, then deepens into notes of cassis, chocolate and liquorice. The finish is concentrated and structured with mouthcoating tannins and a meaty complexity.

The Esprit de Tablas 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 blocks were individually hand-harvested in multiple passes for optimum ripeness. The grapes were fermented using native yeasts in a mixture of 6800 litre wooden upright fermenters, open-top tanks and closed stainless steel tanks. After pressing, the wines were moved to barrel and allowed to complete malolactic fermentation. The team selected the vintage's best lots and blended them in May 2018. The wines were then aged in 5500 litre French oak foudres for another year before being bottled

Tablas Creek was founded in 1987 by the Perrin family of Château de Beaucastel, and the Haas family, owners of the US importer Vineyard Brands. After many years travelling across the United States together to promote the Perrin wines, Robert Haas and Jacques Perrin agreed that California’s climate was ideally suited to the Rhône’s native grape varieties and decided to establish their own winery.