Tablas Creek Vineyard

Tablas Creek is the winery most responsible for establishing Paso Robles as a serious Rhône variety region. Set on the Adelaida Hills on the Westside, it grows Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Roussanne, Viognier, and a handful of other varieties that were rare in California before the winery's founders brought cuttings from their Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate in France.

The tasting room is unpretentious and the staff knowledgeable about viticulture. The winery also operates a nursery that has supplied cuttings to dozens of other Paso wineries. Walk the vineyard before tasting if the weather is good — the limestone outcropping and the dry-farmed vines give a clear sense of why this part of the Westside produces wines that taste different from those on the valley floor.

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A story
Tablas Creek was founded as a joint venture between the Perrin family of Château de Beaucastel in the southern Rhône and Robert Haas of Vineyard Brands. They imported vine cuttings directly from Beaucastel — a lengthy process requiring USDA quarantine — and planted them on the Westside's limestone-rich soils, arguing that the calcareous terrain matched the Rhône more closely than Napa's volcanic soils.