2017 Tablas Creek Counoise

Community Tasting Notes (13) Avg Score: 90 points

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  3/11/2022 - Stampeder Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Very nice wine. A lighter wine, but delivers nuanced flavors with blue and red fruit. Peppery spice with some earthy undertones. Rounded from start to finish.

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  6/19/2021 - tward Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Probably the best Counoise I've had. It combined typical Tablas elegance, restraint, and minerality with a bit of the wild, "natural" style that many producers of Counoise seem to go with. So there was a red and blue fruits, spice, strawberry, pine forest floor scents along with some tame gamey / sauvage thing. Clean and pure, but with more depth and finish than you find in most Counoise renditions. A bit deeper and darker at the core.
  
  A really flexible food wine, but this one deserves some sipping on its own, so I was glad to have a bit of time with it before, during, and a bit after the meal. (Meal was a Zuni Cafe penne dish with garlic, toasted broccoli and cauliflower, olive, capers, a bit of anchovy and red pepper flake.)
  
  I'd have guessed low-13s but the label shows 14.2% abv. No heat or textural impact I could discern.
  
  This is not inexpensive, but is worth seeking out.

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  11/8/2020 - AAW_RightWine Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Outstanding. If you like Pinot Noir but wish it had a little more body, this is a great wine. Medium body, alcohol, subtle but sweet spice.

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  10/3/2020 - Sashamichael Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Drank with a shrimp in a basil sauce. Wine went beautifully with this dish. Light, nice acidity. Red fruits. Wish I had ordered more!

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  7/11/2020 - forceberry wrote: 88 Points

  14,2% alcohol. Tasted blind.
  
  Youthful, translucent cherry red color with a pale, almost colorless rim. Fragrant and fine-tuned nose with pure and slightly restrained aromas of ripe cranberries, some fresh forest fruits, light earthy tones, a hint of strawberry and a touch of boysenberry. The wine is slightly reductive at first, showing a subtly sulfurous note of hard-boiled eggs on the palate, before blowing it off. The overall feel is vibrant and youthful with a medium body and bright flavors of ripe strawberries, juicy raspberries, some stony mineral tones, a little bit of red plum, light notes of exotic spice and a darker-toned hint of sweet blueberries. The overall feel is balanced but also quite smooth and silky, thanks to the quite high acidity and soft, easy tannins. The finish is long and slightly reductive with a hint of hard-boiled eggs, followed by flavors of peppery spice, some sweet strawberries, a little bit of brambly blackberry, light stony mineral tones and a hint of crunchy cranberry.
  
  A fun, nice and tasty little red quite reminiscent of a lighter Pinot Noir or a less-serious Cru Beaujolais like Chiroubles or Saint-Amour. Suffers from some reduction after pop'n'pour, making this wine really call for decanting. The sulfurous note of hard-boiled eggs did blow off after some time, but it took a good while for the wine to come around, so unless you're planning on aging the wine for some time, remember that it needs to breathe. And based on its style, the wine really doesn't seem like it is built for cellaring; it might develop for a few years and then keep for some years more, but I suspect a light and fresh little red like this is best enjoyed quite young. Perhaps a bit expensive for the style at ~30€, but otherwise a nice little drop - this kind of crunchy, light-bodied style of California is right up my alley.

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