Tablas Creek Vineyard Panoplie Rouge 2019

Tablas Creek Vineyard was founded in 1989. Robert Haas of Vineyard Brands and Jean-Pierre Perrin of Château de Beaucastel conceived the project while traveling through California visiting many of the region’s early pioneers in the 1970s. The wine scene in California was very different at the time, with more focus on Burgundian varieties. The Perrin and Haas families were convinced that California’s Mediterranean climate could produce great Rhône-inspired wines, but they would need to find the perfect location to do so—one with high-calcium soils, a long growing season and moderate nighttime temperatures. The search lasted four years, from 1985 to 1989. The Perrins ultimately settled on the western reaches of Paso Robles, just 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean in what is now the Adelaida District.
 

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-defence mechanism of shutting down, accelerating ripening of our later varieties and producing intense flavours. The resulting compressed harvest was completed under ideal conditions and the vintage shows both concentration and freshness, with bright acids framing ample fruit.

The grapes were fermented using native yeasts in a mix of 1500-gallon wooden upright fermenters, open-top tanks and closed stainless steel fermenters. After pressing, the wines were moved into barrel and allowed to complete malolactic fermentation. The Panoplie was selected from the vintage’s best lots and blended in May 2020, then aged in 1200-gallon French oak foudres for another year before being bottled in July 2021.

97 points
“Glass-staining ruby. A highly complex bouquet evokes red and blue fruit preserves, incense and baking spices, and a suave floral quality emerges with aeration. Sappy, sharply delineated Chambord, blueberry, fruitcake and candied violet flavors deliver a spicy jolt of cracked pepper. Shows outstanding depth as well as vivacity and finishes spicy and extremely long, with the blue fruit and floral notes emphatically repeating.” Vinous – Antonio Galloni

• 62% Mourvedre
• 22% Syrah
• 16% Grenache

This wine pairs well with:

• Game
• Dark Fowl
• Richly Flavoured Stews
• Lamb
• Asian Preparation of Red Meats (eg; Beef Stir Fry)