2025 Picardan
The Tablas Creek Vineyard 2025 Picardan is our seventh varietal bottling of this unique estate-grown varietal, propagated from budwood cuttings from the Château de Beaucastel estate. Picardan is one of the Rhone's most obscure white grapes, permitted in Chateauneuf du Pape but with a total footprint in France of just over one acre, although it was apparently more common before phylloxera's arrival in the 19th century. We imported it into the United States in 2003 as part of our goal to have all the Chateauneuf du Pape varieties. It was released to us in 2010, and we planted a half-acre in 2013. Its first harvest was 2016.
Tasting Notes
A clean mineral nose, lightly lime leaf, with a little pithy lift. The mouth is clean and fresh with key lime and white grapefruit notes and a finish that shows salty minerality and citrus fruit. Pretty.
Technical Details
Appellation
- Adelaida District Paso Robles
Technical Notes
- 12.0% Alcohol by Volume
- 46 Cases Produced
Blend
- 100% Picardan
Certifications
Recipes & Pairings
Recipe Suggestions
Food Pairings
- Mussels Marinière
- Green salads with avocado and citrus dressing
- Scallops
- Light-fleshed fish (halibut, sole) with tropical salsa
Production Notes
The Picardan grapes were grown on our Regenerative Organic Certified™ and biodynamic estate vineyard.
The 2025 vintage began dry but finished wet, with two-thirds of the winter's precipitation coming in February and March. That late rain delayed budbreak and allowed us to dodge any spring frosts. The summer was warm but rarely hot, with the fewest 100° days in our history. Harvest began at a normal time frame but cool temperatures in September and October slowed down harvest. We navigated two early rain events without damage and finished an extended but unhurried harvest in early November. The exceptionally long hangtime and gradual ripening combined to produce fruit with deep colors, remarkable intensity, and noteworthy vibrancy. We believe 2025 has all the hallmarks of a blockbuster year.
Because we only have a half-acre of Picardan in the ground, and the wine has turned out to be so good, there are years where our full production goes into our Esprit de Tablas Blanc and we can't also make a varietal Picardan. But 2025 was both productive and high quality, allowing us to use Picardan in Esprit Blanc and still make a tiny (46-case) bottling.
The fruit was whole cluster pressed, and fermented with native yeasts in a two neutral oak barrels and one stainless steel barrel. At blending in March 2026 we chose the two neutral oak barrels for this varietal wine, and the wine stayed on its lees in those barrels until bottling in June 2026.