2016 Roussanne
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The 2016 Tablas Creek Vineyard Roussanne is Tablas Creek’s sixteenth varietal bottling of our most important white grape. The wine is exuberantly and elegantly in character of the Roussanne grape, with honey, honeysuckle, and pear aromatics, a rich, viscous mouthfeel with just a hint of oak, and a long, lingering finish.
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91 Points; "a very inviting nose." Wine Enthusiast (Sep. 2019) - Cellar Selection
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94 Points; "Medium to full-bodied and perfectly balanced with a opulent texture.": BevX (June 2019)
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93 Points; "mellow and rich, long and subtle.”: Blue Lifestyle (April 2019)
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Outstanding Plus/Extraordinary Potential; "Rich and full with great balance, texture, and flavor": The Underground Wine Letter (April 2019)
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90 points; "It’s elegant, with bright acidity and tons of character": Jeb Dunnuck(November 2018)
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92 points; "juicy and penetrating on the palate, offering intense, mineral-tinged citrus and orchard flavors": Vinous (September 2018)
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92 points; "Elegant and understated": Wine Advocate (May 2018)
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92-93 points; "vibrant citrus and orchard fruit flavors": Vinous (Nov. 2017)
Tasting Notes
The 2016 Roussanne is rich and immediately Rhoney on the nose, with aromas of graham cracker, crystallized pineapple, ginger, and honeycomb. The mouth is rich and inviting, with flavors of honeydew and smoky marzipan, tons of texture, and a little pithy bite that helps all the rich flavors resolve into a clean, dry finish. A hint of sweet oak lingers. The wine has only been in bottle for a few months and we expect it to continue to flesh out over the next year. Hold for a few months at least, then drink over the next decade or more.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Adelaida District Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- 12.7% Alcohol by Volume
- 900 Cases Produced
Blend
- 100% Roussanne
Recipes & Pairings
Recipe Suggestions
Food Pairings
- Rich shellfish (lobster and crab)
- Sea Bass
- Mildly spicy foods (curries, gumbo)
- Stir-fries in garlic and olive oil
- Salmon
Production Notes
We use most of our Roussanne in our Esprit de Tablas Blanc each year. However, we often have some Roussanne lots in the cellar that are so powerfully characteristic of the varietal that we feel it would be a shame to lose them in a blend. In these cases, we reserve a small quantity of this Roussanne for a single-varietal bottling.
Our Roussanne grapes were grown on our certified organic estate vineyard.
The 2016 vintage, while still marked by drought, saw better rainfall than the four previous years, and the vineyards showed good health through most of the growing season. That season started with a very early budbreak and continued warm weather spurred our earliest-ever beginning to harvest, on August 18th. But beginning mid-August, three cool weeks slowed the ripening for all but our earliest grapes, and allowed them to reach flavor and phenolic maturity with slightly above-average hang time. The resulting vintage shows excellent concentration but also remarkable vibrancy, with electric acids framing appealing juiciness.
Roussanne yields recovered slightly in 2016, but were still low, and produced wines with both lushness and density. We fermented the Roussanne lots that were selected for our varietal bottling roughly 55% in foudre, 35% in neutral oak puncheons, and 10% in small new barriques. The selected lots were blended in April 2017 then aged through the subsequent harvest before bottling this past December.