2023 Terret Noir
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The Tablas Creek Vineyard 2023 Terret Noir is our eighth varietal bottling of this rarely-seen Chateauneuf-du-Pape grape, propagated from budwood cuttings from the Château de Beaucastel estate.
While we have also begun using Terret Noir in our red blends, it is a fascinating grape on its own, unlike anything else from the Rhone. As a varietal bottling, we feel it expresses well what our 1904-edition French ampelography calls its "qualities of lightness, freshness, and bouquet".
Tasting Notes
A peppery nose of blood orange, pink peppercorn, and sweetgrass. The palate is tannic and pithy with a bay-like herbiness, black raspberry fruit, and a finish of watermelon rind and sagebrush. Fascinating and fun.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Adelaida District Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- 13.5% Alcohol by Volume
- 90 Cases Produced
Blend
- 100% Terret Noir
Certifications
Recipes & Pairings
Recipe Suggestions
Food Pairings
- Dried sausages
- Salty cheeses
- Santa Maria tri tip
- Coq au vin
Production Notes
Terret Noir is a little-known blending grape from the south of France; in addition to being one of the permitted grapes in Chateauneuf du Pape, it was once (before 1850) the most planted variety in the department of Herault. The half-acre that we planted here in Paso Robles is California's first. Terret Noir is a large-berried grape that produces wines with pale color, good acidity, and a spicy, floral, earthy wildness.
The 2023 vintage began with our wettest-ever winter, replenishing ground water 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 Terret Noir grapes were grown on our Regenerative Organic Certified™ and biodynamic estate vineyard.
The fruit was destemmed and fermented on the skins for two weeks in a 1-ton microfermenter, punched down twice daily, to extract maximum flavor from this thin-skinned grape. Only native yeasts were used. After two weeks, the berries were pressed and this was combined with the free-run juice into neutral oak barrels. The Terret for our single-varietal bottling was selected for its balance of juiciness and tannic grip, were aged in neutral barrels until their bottling in Feb 2025.