
Tasting Notes
Petite Sirah - The Grape Varietal
This is especially true when said underdog is an affordable wine that grows more enticing with age. An underdog wine that loads a rock into its sling and brings giant wines of prestigious pedigree to their knees, time after time. Ya gotta love a wine like that! Such a wine is California's better Petite Sirahs.
I once opened a Petite Sirah from 1987 and didn’t tell my wife what it was until half way through dinner. She was stunned to learn its age (she’d guessed ten years younger) and that it was originally a $12 wine!
If you ever want a wine as a wedding gift to be opened on a milestone anniversary, or a baby gift to be opened on a 21st birthday, you really must consider this Petite Sirah, it really can age that long.
Only a few cases of this wine remained at the winery's warehouse, and I gladly bought the entire supply. Why? Because this wine is just coming into its own, transitioning from the awkward years of adolescence into the more assured years of adulthood. A wine that will age for another decade without breaking sweat, it is also drinking well now.
Classic deep garnet color with a rich purple edging. Aromas feature a hint of black pepper and blackberry and pleasant, not over-wrought American oak spice. In the mouth this David of a wine turns into a Goliath, with plum, pencil shavings and ripe black cherry well balanced by its tannic structure. Winemaker Mark Foster chose American Oak to frame this wine, as its aromatics of tropical coconut softens the power and tannin of the Petite Sirah. Just 228 cases produced.
Who doesn’t love a good David and Goliath story? Pulling for the underdog makes a casual bystander suddenly involved and prone to standing on chairs to whoop n’ holler.
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