US winery Tablas Creek said it has achieved a decades-long mission to make single-varietal wines from all 14 traditional Châteauneuf-du-Pape grape varieties that feature at Château de Beaucastel, one of the French appellation’s best-known producers.
Muscardin, rarely seen beyond the Rhône and planted in California by Tablas Creek in 2019, is the newest arrival after a 25-case production run in the 2023 vintage.
Tablas Creek, founded in 1989 by Beaucastel’s Perrin family and Robert Haas, of Vineyard Brands, said that makes its new 14-wine collection a first for a US winery.
Located in Paso Robles, the producer has long been a pioneer of Rhône varieties in the US, and regenerative farming.
‘I can feel my dad smiling down at this landmark,’ said Tablas Creek’s second-generation proprietor, Jason Haas. ‘People so often think of the Rhone grape varieties as “just blending grapes”. But tasting them on their own…each one has its own distinctive personality.
‘We are proud to have introduced so many of them to California viticulture, and to see millions of cuttings from those original mother vines in hundreds of vineyards up and down the West Coast.’
A long road
From the start, Tablas Creek has imported and propagated grape varieties grown at Beaucastel. Its first plantings, in 1994, included Mourvèdre, Grenache and Grenache Blanc, Syrah, Counoise and Roussanne.
Next came Picpoul Blanc in 2000, followed by Terret Noir and Clairette Blanche (2010), Picardan (2013), Vaccarèse, Cinsault and Bourboulenc (2016), and, finally, Muscardin in 2019.
Its 14-strong, single-varietal range covers each of these. Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s appellation body cites 13 allowable grape varieties, but it only counts Grenache once.
A debut for Muscardin
Tablas Creek brought over a fresh wave of Beaucastel plant material in 2003, but US officials quarantined varieties for varying lengths of time.
‘Poor Muscardin stayed in quarantine until 2018,’ said Haas, in a winery blog post.
Now in the bottle, he said the variety ‘has lovely floral character, pretty pomegranate fruit, bright acids, an herby complexity like walking on a Provencal hillside, and a little sneaky grip of tannins on the finish.’
There will be a small amount of Muscardin 2024, he said, following up on the small-scale 2023-vintage debut.
‘We’re also looking for the opportunity to get a little more Muscardin in the ground, so we’re looking at potential quantities more like 50-100 cases instead of 25.’
Tablas Creek said it would introduce its Muscardin at an industry event, but will also hold some back to see how it evolves.
Look out for an upcoming in depth analysis, alongside reviews of the wines, by our Rhône correspondent Matt Walls.
