2019 Le Complice
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The Tablas Creek Vineyard 2019 Le Complice, our fourth vintage of our first new blend in a decade, celebrates the kinship between Syrah and one of our more obscure red varieties, Terret Noir. In French, Le Complice means, roughly, "partners in crime". Although Syrah is dark and Terret light, both share wild herby black spice, and Terret's high acids bolster Syrah's tendency toward stolidity. We added some Grenache for mid-palate fleshiness.
Tasting Notes
A savory, umami-rich nose of iodine, soy, wintergreen, and graphite. The mouth is juicier than the nose suggests, with sweeter-toned flavors of licorice, star anise, baking chocolate, plum skin, and bay. The finish is more generous yet, with the predominant notes being Chinese five spice and loamy earth. Plenty of tannic richness. A wine to pair in its youth with rich, flavorful meats, which we suspect will age for two decades or more.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Adelaida District Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- 13.5% Alcohol by Volume
- 793 Cases Produced
Blend
- 67% Syrah
- 27% Grenache
- 6% Terret Noir
Recipes & Pairings
Recipe Suggestions
Food Pairings
- Grilled Steaks
- Cassoulet
- Spicy Sausages
- Lamb
Production Notes
The grapes for our Le Complice were grown on our Organic and biodynamic estate vineyard.
The 2019 vintage began with ample rainfall the preceding winter. The wet soils delayed budbreak to a little after normal, and a cool first half of the summer delayed flowering and the ripening of our earlier varieties. Beginning the second week of July, the weather turned warm but never so warm to engage the vines' self-defense mechanism of shutting down, accelerating ripening of our later varieties and producing intense flavors. The resulting compressed harvest was completed under ideal conditions and the vintage shows both concentration and freshness, with bright acids framing ample fruit.
The wine was blended in June of 2020, aged in foudre, bottled in April 2021, and aged in our cellars until release.