Pride Mountain Petite Sirah 2000

It's been quite a while since my last post - life has been incredibly busy, including a move back to Canada and the start of my bar admissions course. And what do I elect to do with my first quiet moment? Think about this great bottle of California grape extract. Petite sirah is almost quintessentially Californian - the politically incorrect sibling of Zinfandel. This was one of the last bottles I had in California before returning back to Vancouver.

Deep purple in the glass - like a crimson sunset. The nose is very grapey and jammy with plenty of blackberry, plum, kreosite and chocolate. With all that intensity the alcohol is prominant on the nose, and this wine has serious legs in the glass.

The palate is impressively structured given its sheer mass: not too jammy, but replete with fruit and massive tannins that are on the verge of overwhelming. While drinking just about right now, I could not imagine what this was like upon release. The extraction and concentration are so intense in this wine that the flavour almost becomes a texture. An absolute goliath of a wine.

Very Good+
$52 at Benchmark Wines

Broken Spur Petite Sirah 2006

Bounty Hunter's (sweet Napa store) proprietary brand. I had this 2 years ago on my first trip to Napa as the first PS I had ever tasted. This vintage was somehow far less convincing. The almost cheap fruit aroma did not get me excited, and while this improved with air and with Eisch, in the end this was all jammy, plump and somewhat gummy sweet. I prefer PS to have a tannic backbone to support the opulence. This is just flabby. Nonetheless, if you like soft wines this had a lot of chocolate, blueberry and plum on the palate, and it does add weight with air. So, the final verdict is: decent, but overpriced.

Good+

$28 at Bounty Hunter

Vincent Arroyo Winery Petite Sirah 1999

One of the few remnants from my Napa and Sonoma trip a couple years ago, I picked up this petite sirah at a little winery in Northern Napa right before a special celebration. They had opened their wine library for sale the next day so I got picking of some old small production Napa wines. How could I resist? They consider their Petite Sirah to be their flagship wine.

I don't know too many people who have had the chance to taste a nearly 10 year old Petite Sirah, so I was very excited upon opening this bottle. The nose was nutty and very jammy with plums and blue fruits abound - very opulent. Understandable for Petite Sirah. However, the palate is where things got interesting: sure it had big black fruits, chocolate, cassis and oak - but it also had a distinct woodsyness and a refinement and elegant I have not yet tasted in Petite Sirah. Furthermore, the finish was incredibly long - far longer then any other PS I have tasted - with great acidity. My biggest complaint was that over time it became unbalanced and maybe was a little unstructured to begin with. A big wallop of fruit up front collapses into the woodsy mid-palate. However, despite a little awkwardness I still thoguht this was pretty elegant - strange maybe, but true. An interesting experiment in aging Petite Sirah, clearly aging this variety is possible and it works. This paired great with the Morrocan lamb stew I had for dinner. I recommend checking Arroyo out in Napa if you are down there - they make some tasty stuff that is different from the norm (great blends too).

Very Good+
$50 USD at the Winery

Miner Petite Sirah 2004

This is the sort of wine that tends to funnel all its complexity into exclamations of "yummy" and "mmm". Here we have a classic dark inky Petite Sirah. Very ripe fruit, but not over the top. In fact, this big wine is balanced very nicely with a healthy dose of tannins. A chocolatey and rich blue and black berried effort, this is what PS should taste like. And, it's perfect with a burger. One of the last bottles left from my Napa trip last year. And, by the way, Miner is a great little winery to visit with friendly and honest staff and a nice range of well made wines to sample.

Excellent

$40 USD at the winery

A Petite Sirah Tasting in Honour of My 100th Post

Astonishingly I have managed to post 100 notes on this site since its inception. I created this site with the same simply desire as many to just provide a space for my personal notes that a few others might also enjoy reading and debating. I wasn't sure if it would last, but the fact I've made it to 100 in only a few months is good assurance that I will continue!

So I had this tasting a couple weeks ago in support of summer and BBQ's. I pulled together a couple friends to taste one wine from Napa, one from Sonoma, and one from Barossa. Given my feelings that this varietal is undersung, this was a good chance to share the love and see if I still liked petite sirah as much as I used to. Ultimately, I have yet to had an expression of this varietal that fully blows me away; yet, there are also many very strong examples that work very well when paired with the right food. We had beef ribs, lamb and beef souvlaki to pair with these wines.

Wine #1: Foppiano Petite Sirah 2004

This wine is made from grapes sourced in the Russian River Valley. Foppiano also helped to champion Petite Sirah as a worthy single varietal wine. This had large fruit flavours like raspberry and red berries. A bit rough around the edges, but very big and a very authentic expression of fruit.

Very Good+

$20 in USD

Wine #2: Elyse Petite Sirah 2005

The Napa selection: chcolate, blackberry, cherry and blueberry. This was thick and full-bodied. A touch manipulated, but done well.

Excellent

$40 at Marquis

Wine #3: Massena Howling Dog Durif 2004

Not typical for Petite Sirah, at least none of the ones I've tasted. Perhaps this is the unique terroir of Barossa. This was much tarter and more acidic than petite sirah normally is. A high-boned structure well poised for the proper food pairing. Blackberry tartness and a long finish.

Excellent

$55 ($35 on sale) at Marquis

David Fulton Petite Sirah 2003

As I've mentioned before, I've always been a fan of petite sirah. It's not what I would classify as my favourite grape, but I appreciate its uniqueness. David Fulton began just as a grape grower who would sell his petite sirah to some pretty high class customers for blending purposes. These days the winery is also producing a top notch petite sirah bottling of their own that shows what this grape is capable of.

The nose was very pruney this time around. When I originally had this wine about six months ago the nose was a lot more toasty. The palate was very chocolatey with dark cherry and prune fruit flavours. Upon initially tasting the wine it seems a bit simple, but then after a couple seconds the mid-palate explodes into intense flavour that develops into a length and very pleasurable finish. This wine is big and intense, but has superb tannin structure and is concentrated and focused, unlike other petite sirahs. This is a BBQ wine from the gods and probably the best petite sirah I've tasted to date.

Excellent
$37 USD (purchased in California)

Stag's Leap Winery Petite Syrah 2003

So I had heard that Stag's Leap Winery was well known for their petite sirah and had produced a cult following for their take on this varietal. Given that I'm a petite sirah lover, I had to give this a try, even though it is reasonably pricey - and, I have to say that I'm quite impressed with the effort.

First off I have to note that this wine is exceptionally well balanced for a petite sirah, and I thought it at times suggested a fine cab sauv in its balance and power. What elevates this beyond basic petite sirah, though, is that this balance is coupled with a great flavour profile with a nice ebbing and flowing of flavour developments ranging from toasty caramel flavours to cherry and boysenberry (but well balanced) and red licorice. The tannins were a bit too heavy on the first day I drank this, but really mellowed by the 2nd day, although if you do pick this up you might want to let it sit a while longer or pair it with a moderately flavoured creamy cheese to moderate the tannins and bring out the fruit. In any case, I very much enjoyed drinking this and while maybe a tad expensive it is definitely unique for the petite sirah varietal.

Excellent

$50 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars

L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah 2004

I should first note that I drank this while watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which is such a great movie that it maybe swayed my mood upward! If there ever was a perfectly paced and structured western, it certainly ranks among the best.

The Ugly: The only thing ugly here were my expectations, since this wine hails from Mexico. I admit I had preconceptions about its quality (although I still got it on a recommendation). This was pretty unfair given what I ended up drinking.

The Bad: the structure is a bit simple and the wine has a tinge of that 'burn on the way down' feeling that is oh so wonderful. However, no more than most wines at this price point.

The Good: Let's just say this wine made me realize that I should spend a bit more time seeking out good budget wines, because they can often give you the value of something twice as expensive. The nose revealed mostly blackberry aromas, and a bit of alcohol (even though this was only 13.5%). The palate was quite interesting with cherry, blackberry, a bit of blueberry, black and red licorice and a hint of tar. I wasn't too into the slight taste of boysenberry on the finish, but that's cause I really don't like boysenberry. Overall it was a medium bodied wine with a lot of flavour. It comes from the valle de Guadelupe in Baja, and while I'm not too sure how many Mexican wines are worth drinking, generally this is an impressive effort and well worth the price.


Very Good
$17 at Liberty

Earthquake Petite Sirah 2003

Just yesterday I decided to take part in "Wine Blogging Wednesday" (http://www.winebloggingwednesday.org/) since the theme of the week happened to be petite sirah, which is one of my favourite 'underdog' varietals. I got into petite sirah when I took a trip to Napa last summer and I discovered that many of the smaller wineries were producing an inky, powerful, and yet amazingly structured little wine from a varietal I had only seen used in blending. During my trip I discovered great petite sirahs from Miner, Arroyo, Broken Spur and the grand daddy of them all: David Fulton. After my trip I got so excited about the varietal that, even though I brought back maybe 4 bottles of the stuff, I spent the next several weeks seeking out every petite sirah I could in the city. This bottle is a result of that treck and I have been meaning to try it for some time.

This wine hails from the Lodi Appellation in California and has a wonderfully intense nose that explodes from the glass - having intensity a good 30 cm above the Riedel Cab Sauv glass I used to drink this out of. I would describe the flavours as consisting of chocolate, plum, loads of dark red berry, and slightly burnt caramalized fruit (which I find characteristic of my favourite petite sirahs). This is quite smooth given the high alcohol content (15.5%), but the fruit finishes with a bit of gooseberry, which isn't what I like wines to finish with, as I think the bitterness takes away from the 'upward' development of the wine. Also, I find that the structure is a bit all over the place and the wine could use a lot more balance between the fruit, oak, and tannin. I have read critiques of the petite sirah varietal as being generally unstructured, even if powerful and flavourful. I think, though, that in the hands of a master a petite sirah can be very refined and balanced. I don't know much about wine making, but I imagine that making a superb petite sirah might be a test of a winemaker's skills since so few bottles show the potential of the best I've had.

However, overall this is a well above average petite sirah and a very good example of the varietal, even if there are others out there that take it to another level. A bit expensive in Canada, I think it's a decent price in the US. However, overall this is a bit over-priced for what you get. I still had a lot of fun drinking it, though.

$50 at Kitsilano Wine Cellars
Very Good+