2006 Vin de Paille Quintessence
The 2006 Tablas Creek Vineyard Vin de Paille “Quintessence” is Tablas Creek’s reserve bottling of this traditional Mediterranean technique for producing dessert wines. Ripe grape bunches are carefully laid down on straw-covered benches in our greenhouses, and allowed to dehydrate in the sun. When the grapes reach the desired concentration, we press them and move the juice to oak barrels for fermentation. The juice ferments until it reaches an alcohol level where the sweetness of the juice is balanced by the acids and mineral characteristics of the wine itself.
Tasting Notes
The 2006 Vin de Paille “Quintessence” has a beautiful nose of maple syrup, caramel and ripe apricots, with remarkably concentrated flavors of honey, spice and pear, good balancing acidity and an exceptionally long finish. We expect it to drink well for decades.
Updated tasting notes from a January 2016 vertical tasting can be found on the Tablas Creek blog.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- Sugar at Pressing: 420 g/l
- Residual Sugar: 280 g/l
- 8.6% Alcohol by Volume
- 50 375ml Cases Produced
Blend
- 100% Roussanne
Recipes & Pairings
Food Pairings
- Crème Brulée
- Dried Fruit
- Tarte Tatin
- Aged Blue Cheeses
Production Notes
The grapes for our Vin de Paille were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.
In 2006, we dried all four of our white Rhone grapes (Roussanne, Viognier, Marsanne, and Grenache Blanc) on straw in our greenhouses. We then pressed the grapes and fermented the wines separately. By the middle of the winter, it was clear to us that one barrel of the Roussanne was distinctly different than the rest, with tremendous richness and (we suspected) great longevity. When we blended our 2006 Vin de Paille blend, we held out this barrel to give it another year in our cellar to evolve, and bottled it as Vin de Paille “Quintessence”.
The 2006 vintage was a study of contrasts, with a cold, wet start, a very hot early summer, a cool late summer and a warm, beautiful fall. Ample rainfall in late winter gave the grapevines ample groundwater, and produced relatively generous crop sizes. The relatively cool late-season temperatures resulted in a delayed but unhurried harvest, wines with lower than normal alcohols, strong varietal character, and good acids. We harvested the Roussanne for our Vin de Paille in one day on October 11th.
The wine, after pressing, was aged in a new French oak barrel for 22 months before being bottled in June of 2008. It was released in February of 2009, after an additional eight months in bottle.