2018 Vin de Paille
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The 2018 Vin de Paille is Tablas Creek’s sixth bottling (and first since 2012) of this traditional Mediterranean technique for producing dessert wines. Ripe Roussanne 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 2018 Vin de Paille has a beautiful nose of ripe apricots, sweet grain, maple syrup, and lavender. The palate is sweet and luscious, with flavors of yellow raspberry, butterscotch, and marmalade, balanced by vibrant acids that linger on the long, clean, juicy lemon drop finish. We expect it to age gracefully in bottle for a decade or more.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- Sugar at Pressing: 472.3 g/L
- Residual Sugar: 126.4 g/L
- 14.5% Alcohol by Volume
- 150 Cases Produced
Blend
- 100% Roussanne
Recipes & Pairings
Food Pairings
- Crème Brulée
- Dried Fruit
- Tarte Tatin
- Aged Blue Cheeses
Production Notes
The Roussanne grapes for our Vin de Paille were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.
In 2018, we dried Roussanne on straw in our greenhouses. We then pressed the grapes and fermented the wine in three barrels, from which we bottled 150 half-bottle cases of our Vin de Paille.
The 2018 vintage saw an almost ideal balance of vine health and stress, as is often the case with the first dry year after a very wet one. Although rainfall was just 70% of normal, the rains came late, delaying the onset of bud-break and the beginning of the growing season. The cool weather continued most of the year, punctuated by a six-week heat wave in July and early August. But temperatures moderated before picking began, and harvest proceeded under slightly cooler than normal conditions, allowing us to pick without stress and producing fruit (and wines) with intense flavors and good balancing acidity.
We harvested the Roussanne for our Vin de Paille on October 19th. It spent roughly two weeks on straw in our greenhouses, and was brought into the cellar for pressing on November 2nd. The wine, after pressing, was aged in three French oak barrels for 8 months before being bottled in June of 2019.