The 2005 Esprit de Beaucastel is in a beautiful place, wafting from the glass with a wild and stunningly complex bouquet of grilled meat, plummy fruit, Provence herbs, rich soil and an exotic top note of Egyptian musk. On the palate, it's full-bodied, layered and rich, with juicy acids, fine-grained but chalky tannins, excellent energy and immense savory complexity. Evoking a youthful version of Beaucastel's fabulous 1981 vintage, this superb wine still has more than a decade of life ahead of it.

The 2005 Esprit de Beaucastel is a 3,500-case blend of 44% Mourvedre, 26% Grenache, 25% Syrah, and 5% Counoise. Its dense ruby/purple hue is accompanied by a beautiful perfume of road tar, camphor, meat, Provencal herbs, blackberries, cassis, cherries, licorice, and pepper. This Beaucastel-like beauty boasts full body, excellent tannin and structure as well as good accessibility. Enjoy it over the next decade. Readers would be hard pressed to find more French-like wines in the Paso Robles corridor than those produced by Tablas Creek. This is a partnership between renowned importer Robert Haas (Vineyard Brands), one of the pioneers of estate-bottled French wines, and Francois Perrin, one of the owners of Chateau Beaucastel in Chateauneuf du Pape. Haas and Perrin run a serious vineyard operation with vines planted on the steep hillsides in pure limestone soils, not far from the Pacific Ocean. All of these cuvees possess distinctive personalities, good acids, and striking minerality. Even though they make very good single varietal wines, I still believe their strength lies in their sensational blends. That said, my two favorite dry whites, other than the blended wines, are their Chablis-like, unwooded Antithesis Chardonnay and the tank-fermented and aged, exquisite Vermentino. The 2005 red wines have all been bottled. I tasted a handful of 2007 reds, which appears to be a superb vintage for Tablas Creek. (Production was down 15% for the red wine varietals and 30% for the whites, thus giving everything an extra degree of concentration.)Tel. (805) 237-1231; Fax (805) 237-1314