Today's Sponsor• A message from WineLibrary.com In This Issue• This Sirah's not so petite |
This Sirah's not so petite
For many wine enthusiasts, Petite Sirah is the Rodney Daingerfield of wine grapes, a variety that doesn't get any respect.
Perhaps it's the name - "Petite" being French for "small" - although curiously enough, this black, thick-skinned wine grape doesn't seem perceptibly undersize compared with other varieties.
Or maybe it's the conventional wisdom about Petite Sirah's European heritage as the French Durif, a relatively modern variety that's almost invariably described as "a lesser grape."
Then, too, Petite Sirah isn't a happy puppy of a grape, like, say, Zinfandel, that runs up and jumps up on you and yaps happily with jammy, fruit-bomb perfume. Dark, brooding and deep, Petite Sirah makes a wine that can seem forbiddingly monolithic and even simple in its youth, requiring plenty of airing and the right food match to come around; or better yet, a decade or maybe two in a good cellar.
But there's plenty to like about Petite Sirah, particularly if you like bold, full-bodied wines with lots of structure, the kind of drink that calls out for a big chunk of rare roast beef or an excellent steak. Add extra credit for a vinous heritage that places it right alongside Zinfandel as a classic California variety since the days when Grover Cleveland sat in the White House.
Dr. Francois Durif developed the new variety in 1880, crossing true Syrah with the old French grape Peloursin to yield a dark, tightly bunched variety that he named after himself. Within four years, it came to California, where it quickly picked up the name "Petite Sirah" to distinguish it from true Syrah, which had come to the New World a few years later.
You can enjoy the full story in an outstanding timeline by Louis M. Foppiano and commentary by the wine-grape scientist Dr. Carole Meredith, on the informative Website, "P.S. I Love You."
To make a long story short, though, Petite Sirah has never dominated the California wine scene but has remained an important niche player. Many of its plantings, and arguably the best, are ancient, dry-farmed vines, some of them in patches going back to the late 1800s.
In recent years, Dr. Meredith found through DNA studies that California's modern stock of vineyards identified as Petite Sirah are typically an odd "field blend" mix of Durif, Peloursin, true Syrah and a few unrelated vines including Zinfandel and Carignan. When individual vines identified as Petite Sirah are analyzed, however, 90 percent of them prove to be Durif and essentially all the rest are Peloursin.
If you're looking for an introduction to Petite Sirah, today's featured wine makes a good place to start. Concannon 2004 Central Coast Petite Sirah is typical, affordable ($10.99 in my local market), and it enjoys a minor historical distinction all its own. Winery owner Jim Concannon traces his own family tree to his grandfather, James Concannon, who made Central wine starting in 1883, just as Petite Sirah was coming to the U.S.; and the modern Concannon winery lays claim to producing the first varietally labeled Petite Sirah in modern times, offering a non-vintage Livermore Valley Petite Sirah for sale in 1964. You'll find my tasting notes below.
Today's Sponsor
A message from WineLibrary.com
You may have seen us featured in GQ magazine, The Wall Street Journal, New Jersey Monthly and elsewhere. WineLibrary.com features a huge collection of top wines from around the world, great gifts and accessories, a daily video blog (WineLibraryTV), huge selection of futures (including red hot 2005 Bordeaux at incredible pricing) and much, much more!
Search our quick loading/high speed database of the hottest new wines from California, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Austria, South America and more. Join our e-mail service and get an early heads up when wines like Bryant, Harlan, Dominus and others arrive!
Bottom line, we offer the lowest prices, the largest selection, lightning fast shipments and the greatest customer service in the industry! WineLibrary.com is your one-stop shop for everything wine ... so what are you waiting for? Log on to WineLibrary.com today!
For our Free Shipping Item of the Day, log on to http://free.winelibrary.com!
Each day at 1 p.m. we add a new item that is set for Free Shipping!!
Quantity is limited and products will sell out, so be sure to check out http://free.winelibrary.com each day at 1 p.m. for the new item!
Concannon 2004 Central Coast Petite Sirah ($10.99)
Inky blackish-purple. Black cherries and blueberries and a hint of warm spice on the nose. Big and juicy cherry-berry fruit flavors wrapped up in substantial tannins and tangy acidity; tastes a bit more warm and full than its rather modest 13.5% claimed alcohol would suggest. Simple but muscular, with substantial aging potential; but you can go ahead and enjoy it now, if you don't mind some tannic astringency: Tame the wine a bit with breathing and an appropriate match with rare red meat or strong cheese, and it's good to go. (Aug. 6, 2007)
FOOD MATCH: Juicy grass-fed hamburger pan-seared to a crisp exterior and juicy pink inside, crumbled over a simple summer salad of romaine lettuce, sweet onion and lots of ripe summer tomato.
VALUE: Just over $10 is more than fair for a bold, full-bodied California red of this quality.
WHEN TO DRINK: Petite Sirah is known as an exceptionally ageworthy wine, with a caveat: Well-kept, it tends to remain all but unchanged in the bottle for a decade or even two, drinkable throughout the period but not really evolving, before it eventually develops complex "tertiary" aromas and flavors.
WEB LINKS:
For information about Concannon's wines in general, including its Central Coast Petite Sirah (listed under "Limited Release" wines), see the winery Website,
http://www.concannonvineyard.com
FIND THIS WINE ONLINE:
Locate vendors and compare prices for Concannon Petite Sirah on Wine-Searcher.com:
http://www.wine-searcher.com/
find/Concannon%2bPetite/-/-/USD/A?referring_site=WLP
Talk About Wine Online
If you have questions, comments or ideas to share about today's article
or wine in general, you're always welcome to drop by our online
WineLovers Discussion Group. This link will take you to the forum home page, where you can read discussions in all the forum sections:
http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/village
Everyone is free to browse. If you'd like to post a comment, question or reply, you must register, but registration is free and easy. Do take care to register using your real name, or as a minimum, your real first name and last initial. Anonymous registrations are quietly discarded.
To contact me by E-mail, write wine@wineloverspage.com. I'll respond personally to the extent that time and volume permit.
PRINT OUT TODAY'S ARTICLE
Here's a simply formatted copy of today's Wine Advisor, designed to be printed out for your scrapbook or file or downloaded to your PDA or other wireless device.
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineadvisor2/
2007/08/this_sirahs_not_so_petite-print.html
