Wine Advocate (Aug. 2009)

HOW IS IT DRINKING?
Vintage Chart

The 2008 Tablas Creek Vineyard Antithesis Chardonnay is Tablas Creek's ninth bottling of this traditional Burgundian varietal. In the early 1990s, we imported all our Rhone varietal cuttings from France. At the same time, at the request of a Sonoma winery, we imported the hightly regarded small-berry, low-vigor Chardonnay clone named "La Vineuse" and planted 1.5 acres to produce a small amount of bud wood for sale. Three years later, we got our first small crop of Chardonnay.

After tasting the grapes, we thought them so compelling that we made the "Antithesis" Chardonnay our first non-Rhone bottling, as well as our first single-varietal wine. We have continued to produce a small amount each year since.

As with all our wines, our Chardonnay grapes were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.

Chardonnay thrives in our chalky clay soils (much like those of Burgundy), and the cool nights in Paso Robles serve to balance the warm, sunny days. We chose a terraced north-east facing block above our grapevine nursery for the Chardonnay.

The 2008 vintage was our second consecutive drought year, and the production was further decreased by frost in our Chardonnay block. Our Chardonnay crop of just one ton per acre was 50% below the already-low numbers of 2007. The low yields resulted in a wine of tremendous concentration, with good acids and intense varietal character. The Chardonnay, as usual one of our earliest-ripening varietals, was harvested in one day on September 9th.

The Chardonnay grapes were whole cluster pressed, and fermented using native yeasts in a mix of neutral oak and stainless steel barrels to preserve the wine's varietal and mineral character. The wine went through full malolactic fermentation in barrel. It was bottled in July 2009.

The 2008 Antithesis is intensely Chardonnay in character: pale gold in color, with a nose of lemon, pear, and mineral, a rich palate of spiced pear, citrus and butter, balanced by fresh acidity and a long, clean finish.