Not-So Petite Sirah & Other Stuff

While not a "Rhone Valley" grape, a handful of California wineries still make a wine called "Petite Sirah" (some spell it "Petite Syrah").  This variety, it turns out, is not at all related to Syrah and has been thought to be a very minor French grape called Durif.  

We understand that a small percentage of what is called Petite Sirah is probably a really odd variety called Peloursin.  Monsieur Durif, it seems, had actually crossed Syrah with Peloursin to come up with the "Durif" variety!

Petite Sirah enjoyed some of it's 15 minutes of fame in the mid-1970s.  Ridge made excellent, deep-colored peppery red wines of it, though the label most recognized for Petite Sirah was/is Stags' Leap Winery.  A number of wineries made Petite Sirah years ago and it was often used to beef up light Pinot Noirs and wimpy Zinfandels.   Imagine that Concannon and Mirassou were the quality leaders back in the early 1970s! (Translated: Mirassou, until recently and Concannon are not wineries viewed by those "in-the-know" as places to look for interesting wines.)  Freemark Abbey's 1971 Petite Sirah, along with the 1971 Ridge, is legendary!  
David Bruce has been making Petite Sirah since those days of yore, but only in the last few years have they gotten it right.  

Quite a bit was planted in California's Central Valley, growers thinking it would flourish in that area's hot climate.  Plantings have been scaled back significantly and the few Petite Sirah wines made today of any note come from coastal regions. 

 

STAGS' LEAP WINERY

Now owned by Treasury Wine Estates group, this is an old vineyard in the Stags Leap District of the Napa Valley.  The winery was founded by Carl Doumani and made its first wine, a Chenin Blanc, back in 1972.

The red wine of note was (and still is) Petite Sirah, though they make Cabernet and Merlot, too.  

Doumani spent years embroiled in a legal battle with neighbor Warren Winiarski at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars over the "Stags Leap" branding.   
This entanglement settled very little, but it made money for some lawyers.   

The case fermented slowly for years and was finally decided by the California Supreme Court!  The verdict was that both wineries could use the Stags Leap name as they were named not after their owners, but after a geographical site.

It was decreed, then, that Winiarski's winery would be spelled "Stag's Leap" and Doumani would spell his brand as "Stags' Leap."  
We suspect both fellows thought this was a "catastrophe," but in fact it was settled by an "apostrophe."  

If we recall correctly, an earlier verdict was that Stag's Leap Wine Cellars would not sell its Petite Sirah in Napa and Stags' Leap would not sell its Cabernet there.

 

The two adversaries became allies when their neighbors started to use the name "Stags Leap District" on wines from this little corner of the Napa Valley.   They were unsuccessful in protecting their exclusive use of the name and today you can find a number of wineries located in the Stags Leap District.  Interestingly, both wineries boycotted the "Stags Leap District Winegrowers" association.
Today, though, both wineries are members along with 14 others.  ((There used to be 20 members in total.)

Doumani finally sold his property to the Beringer group.  He retained a portion of the original vineyard, though, and makes a really nice wine under the "Panza" label.  Sancho Panza...sidekick to Don Quixote.  Carl, too, is tilting at windmills, still.

Stags' Leap now is under the banner of the Treasury Wine Group and they own numerous brands.  This company makes wines under numerous labels, including the great Penfolds brand from Australia.  But now they're offering California wines under this brand name, muddying the waters and showing they're more interested in marketing, first and foremost.
They also own the Sterling brand which was a once-proud Napa label...now they have cheap Central Valley wine under that brand name!

 

 

 

Petite Sirah continues as the mainstay at Stags' Leap and the wine is deep in color with a peppery, spicy element.   There's a mildly woodsy note here, too. It's matured solely in American oak for 14 months with a small percentage of the barrels being brand new.  Today's wine comes from vineyard sites around the Napa Valley.  Some fruit comes from Calistoga and St. Helena to the north and Coombsville, Oak Knoll and Oakville to the south.

They do a rather short maceration on the skins to keep the tannin level from being too coarse and astringent.

They used to mention the use of Viognier in this wine, but with the 2019 they only say there's a bit  of Grenache and Syrah with 3% "Mixed Rhones."  Perhaps there's a splash of Viognier, but who knows?

 

Currently available:
2019 Napa Valley  PETITE SYRAH 375ml  (half bottles) $25.99

MIRO CELLARS

Miro is a delightful little moonlighting production by a fellow named Miroslav Tcholakov who's daytime gig is being the winemaker for the Trentadue winery in Geyserville.

 

They allow him to dabble with his own winemaking adventure and we've usually found his wines to be quite good and honestly-priced.

He's got a nice touch with Petite Sirah and we've had a number of vintages over the past few years.

The grapes come from the center of the Dry Creek appellation and the fruit is hand-sorted before going into open-top fermenters which are small enough to be punched down by hand.  He handles this task in a fairly gentle fashion, saying he wants to capture the nicely fruity aromas of Petite Sirah while avoiding the harsh tannins.

This is the key to this wine as he's quite successful in hitting the target.

The malolactic fermentation is done in barrel as this helps "fix" the color and it softens the wine.  The 2022  was matured in small oak for just less than a year, with 25% of the cooperage being brand new.  You know how some winemakers "fortify" their Pinot Noir wines with something darker in color such as Syrah or Petite Sirah?  Some vintages have had a bit of Pinot Noir to soften the wine, but the 2022 is entirely Petite Sirah.

The wine has a marvelous fragrance which reminds us of brown spices.  There's a touch of vanilla with a hint of cinnamon and clove.  It's medium+ bodied and rather gentle on the palate, especially in the company of grilled or roasted red meats.

It should cellar well for a few years given it's got a good level of acidity.  We view it as a short-term aging wine, though.

Then there's his little blended red...Sasha.  Named after his daughter.  It's 78% Grenache from a couple of vineyard sites, blended with 22% Syrah  We have liked this wine for a number of vintages.  Just for kicks, we included a previous vintage in a blind-tasting of West Coast "Rhone" Blends.  It was the least costly wine in the tasting (some were $50-$60) and this was the wine of the night.  Sasha easily won the tasting.
 

Currently in stock:  2022 MIRO Dry Creek PETITE SIRAH  Sale $26.99
2022 MIRO North Coast CUVÉE SASHA  $19.99

RETRO CELLARS

This is a very obscure, little production by winemaker Mike Dunn.  He's better know for the Cabernet Sauvignon wines at Dunn Vineyards on Howell Mountain in Napa.

He and his wife, Kara Pecota, grew up in the Napa Valley wine biz.  We met Mike's Pop Randy Dunn in 1974 when he worked at Caymus.  Kara's dad, Robert Pecota, was fresh out of the coffee business and working for Beringer about the same time.

Years later, after Mike worked in the world of bicycles in Napa, he took over Dunn Vineyard and when he's not working on his musical gig as a singer in a local band, he makes some pretty damned good wines.

Dunn Vineyard is an elite winery in the world of Napa Valley Cabernets.

Mike, though, likes all sorts of wines and he dabbles in Syrah, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Peloursin wines under his and Mrs. Dunn's Retro Cellars label.

He makes a few different bottlings.  The Napa Valley 2013 is excellent.  It's inky dark in color and full-bodied on the palate.  We like the touch of spice on the nose with the black fruit tones.  It's matured in small French oak, but the wood is fairly neutral, so don't expect oak in this wine.

We find a touch of cocoa on the palate, too.

Currently in stock:  2013 RETRO CELLARS Napa Valley PETITE SIRAH  Sold Out

It takes a lot of singing and dancing to sell some wines these days.
Mike Dunn is capable of both, in addition to making wine.

 

WILD HOG

The Wild Hog Vineyard is a good little estate in Sonoma with an address in Cazadero, but they're actually a bit of a drive from beautiful Downtown Cazadero.

The estate comprises about 110 acres but only 5 acres is devoted to vineyards.

Daniel and Marion Schoenfeld are avid gardeners and they tend their vines in a similarly loving manner.

The Schoenfelds also purchase grapes from grapes in Dunnigan Hills, Lake County and Mendocino, as well as Sonoma.  

Winemaking is rather simply and relatively low-tech.  Open top fermentation tanks of smallish size.  Once the fermentation finishes and the wine is dry, it goes into oak barrels.  They allow the wine to settle and rack it a few times before bottling without filtration. 

As a result, we tend to enjoy a Wild Hog wine after the bottle has been stood up for a few days and we will decant it.  

We currently have a 2015 vintage of a lovely Grenache from Mendocino County's Eaglepoint Ranch.  We like the wine quite a bit, but it doesn't resemble a Southern Rhône particularly.  There's a mildly woodsy note, so we'd say it's along the lines of some Australian reds or perhaps it's a Grenache styled along the lines of a Bordeaux or Cabernet.  Medium-bodied and there's a touch of red fruit with that mildly oaky quality.  The tannin level is modest, so you can certainly enjoy this tonight.

Currently in stock:  WILD HOG 2015 MENDOCINO GRENACHE  Sold Out

 

 

 

RIDGE VINEYARDS

Ridge has close to 35 acres of Petite Sirah planted north of Healdsburg in Sonoma County near their Lytton Springs winery.

Ages ago they made wine from a Petite Sirah vineyard in Napa on Spring Mountain called "York Creek."  You can see in a snapshot above a bottle of the legendary 1971 vintage!   That bottle was maybe 40 years of age when we opened it and it had changed from a dark, inky fruit bomb to a mature (and then some) red wine.



One parcel of the Lytton estate has vines in it which are more than 100 years old.  About two-thirds of their Petite Sirah was planted between 1987 and 2001.  We've seen this variety under the Ridge label on a fairly regular basis, but it is not the focus of the winery.

 

The 2020 is a medium-full bodied red wine with some dark fruit notes.  It's mildly spicy, though not really purely black pepper spicy...you will find dark fruits with hints of plums and blackberry and then there's a touch of brown spice hinting at cinnamon and maybe clove...with a slight smoky note lingering in the background.

 

Ridge has been making a Grenache Blanc for a number of years and this is a terrific bottle.
The fruit comes from the Paso Robles vineyards of Adelaida.  The 2022 has 14% Picpoul in the blend
It's matured for maybe 5 months in American oak barrels, enough time to give it a bit of toastiness and complexity, but not long enough to turn it into a seriously woodsy white wine.
We like the apple-like fruit and hint of citrus character and, of course, this is dry.

Currently in stock: 2020 RIDGE "Lytton Estate" PETITE SIRAH SALE $44.99
2022 RIDGE GRENACHE BLANC  SALE  $31.99

FRICK

Bill Frick is an old hippie who started his wine adventure in Santa Cruz before establishing a real winery in Sonoma County.

He's a fan of all sorts of unusual grapes and has never been the sort of fellow to follow the leaders.  Cinsault, Counoise, Syrah, Viognier, Syrah and Carignane find a home in Frick's cellar.

 

 

  

 

 

We've been delighted with Bill's fine efforts for decades and always seem to find something interesting in his portfolio.

 

Our most recent tasting through his line-up yielded a wine dubbed "C-2."  It's a deliciously spicy, mildly peppery blend of Carignane and Cinsaut.  (We had C-3 in the previous vintage, Carignane, Cinsaut and Counoise.)

This vintage the wines are from the same vineyard site in Dry Creek and the blend is 60% Carignane and 40% Cinsaut.  The wine was matured in seasoned cooperage, so oak is not a part of the profile of C-2.  It's all about the grapes as singer Meghan Trainor might say.
This is mildly tannic and pairing C-2 with lamb or something with a bit of fat makes it tastes smooth.

 

 

Currently in stock:  2012 FRICK Dry Creek Valley "C-2" Red Blend Sold Out

 

Some French-styled sausages and grilled vegetables were well-matched with Bill Frick's Carignane.

FOPPIANO VINEYARDS

The Foppiano family has been in the wine biz in Sonoma's Healdsburg area since 1896. They had, for many years, made significant quantities of insignificant wines. I can recall their "Burgundy" being a wine of those "in the know" back in the 1970s. We used to have a few of their "jug" wines back in those days: half-gallon bottles filled with wines called "Chianti," "Burgundy," etc.  

Just as World War II was ending, Foppiano was Sonoma's second-largest winery.  

Over the years they made some pretty good wines and they had the normal range of varietals.  Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel were offered and in 1967 they bottled a Petite Sirah.  By the late 1970s there were some Napa wineries also making Petite Sirah, but Foppiano survived having a reasonably nice wine at a more attractive price. 

The Petite Sirah grape makes, generally, a fairly dark-colored wine and so it gained a bit of popularity in the market as consumers shied away from the more complex Pinot Noir because it was difficult to pronounce and the movie Sideways had not made its appearance (declaring that Pinot Noir was uber-cool).

Foppiano enjoyed a measure of fame and maybe a bit of fortune for this wine and, in fact, they've worked hard to promote Petite Sirah.  

But Foppiano remains a smallish, family-operated vineyard and winery.  

Today Foppiano makes about 20,000-30,000 cases of wine.

They're not the new kid on the block, so Foppiano wines are over-looked by many wine-drinkers (who are always looking for the next, best thing).  

Foppiano makes "good" wines, but we've not found any show-stoppers in the portfolio.


Their Estate-grown Petite Sirah has some nice red fruit notes..   We find a brown spice character to the wine, which reminds us of cloves and nutmeg with a nuance of cinnamon.  There's a hint of pepper spice in the 2013.

Try a bottle for yourself and see if you detect this quality in the Foppiano Petite Sirah.

Currently in stock:  Foppiano Russian River 2013 Petite Sirah   Sold Out

In the Olden Days...

HART'S DESIRE

One of our favorite winemakers isn't exactly a "Rhone"-specialist, but he happens to make a damned good Viognier and it puts many California attempts at this grape to shame.

John Hart makes less than 200 cases of this delicious Viognier, capturing elements of peach and apricot.  The fruit comes from a small vineyard on Westside Road in Healdsburg (Sonoma).

Dry, nicely fruity and showing good varietal character...


Currently in stock:  HART'S DESIRE 2017 Sonoma VIOGNIER Sold Out

Some French Syrahs, etc.

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