Esprit Club News & Updates

We are pleased to invite you to participate in our twenty-first annual barrel tasting and sale en primeur of Tablas Creek Vineyard's remarkable wines from the outstanding 2023 vintage: Esprit de Tablas and Panoplie. Offering wine en primeur is a time-honored French tradition most often associated with first-growth Bordeaux estates. In outstanding vintages, valued customers are offered the opportunity to secure a limited quantity of sought-after wines at a special price in advance of bottling and subsequent general release. The wines will be available for delivery or pickup in fall 2025.

To RSVP to the En Primeur Tasting on December 7th: Proprietor Jason Haas and Executive Winemaker Neil Collins will host a live En Primeur tasting on December 7th. Join us for a discussion of the 2023 vintage and wines. RSVP by mail, phone, or online using this link.

To Order: Visit our Futures order page here.

To Taste: You may taste the wine on your own schedule by visiting our tasting room between November 25th and December 16th, and we will pour you the new Esprit and Panoplie. Book your tasting.

The 2023 Vintage:

The 2023 vintage began with our wettest-ever winter, replenishing groundwater and delaying budbreak. It continued with our coolest growing season in more than a decade, which combined with the late start to produce a harvest roughly a month later than most recent years, beginning in mid-September and not concluding until mid-November. Warm, sunny weather starting in October allowed the later-ripening varieties to reach full maturity. The exceptionally long hangtime and gradual ripening combined to produce fruit with deep colors, remarkable intensity, and noteworthy vibrancy. We believe 2023 has all the hallmarks of a blockbuster year.

The Wines:

• 2023 Esprit de Tablas: Esprit de Tablas is Tablas Creek's signature red blend, always led by the dark red fruit, earth, spice and mid-palate richness of Mourvèdre (33%), along with additions of Syrah (31%), Grenache (26%), Cinsaut (6%), Vaccarèse (2%), and Counoise (2%). In this cool vintage, Syrah was particularly outstanding, and we ended our blending trials using our highest percentage ever in Esprit. This gives the wine a luscious darkness and noteworthy minerality, in roughly equal balance with the redder fruit and spicy brightness from the other grapes. It is deep and full-bodied, with ample fine-grained tannins and a
  finish of sweet spice and dark red fruit. It should drink well for two decades or more
• 2023 Panoplie: Panoplie is our elite Mourvèdre-based cuvée, made in the model of Château de Beaucastel's Hommage à Jacques Perrin and selected from the top 5% of lots that come into the cellar each vintage. In 2023, we chose two exceptional lots of Mourvèdre to represent 61% of the wine. We then added one
  powerful lot of Syrah (23%) and two lots of Grenache (16%). The resulting Panoplie allows the purity of the Mourvèdre fruit to shine with currant, black plum, sweet earth and Mourvèdre's characteristic chewy tannins. It should be great to lay down, though it's so tasty that it may be hard to keep away from it in its youth. Drink over the next 25-30 years.