"petite sirah" news and stories

Petite Sirah is a jammy, fruit-forward wine with many complex layers. Juicy plum notes and a hint of pepper drive the taste in most Petite Sirah wines, which are robust, inky and possess solid tannins. Many California wineries -- a mix of newer ones and those that have perfected the grape for decades -- put out a 100-percent Petite Sirah varietal, which is often used as a blending grape in Zinfandel.

There is such a strong fan base for Petite Sirah that the P.S. I Love You group formed a not-for-profit advocacy group with winery members; non-winery members are referred to as "groupies."

Find our seven favorite Petite Sirahs after the jump.

Petite Sirah is a grape that belies its name--there's absolutely nothing petite about it. The wine is big, bold, robust, deep-colored, and tannic, not some mealy-mouthed little girl who sits pretty and still shops in the kids' section. I won't bore you with the complete history of Petite Sirah, which is long, convoluted, and requires an agricultural degree to get through, but instead will give you the one-sentence recap: The grape was probably originally from the Rhone in France, but is now mostly grown in California. Like Zinfandel, Petite Sirah has its own fan base: P.S. I love you. (Clever, eh?)

If you look in the California wine section, you'll likely find one or two bottles of PS to try. If you've never tried them, you should. It's an interesting grape. Sometimes PS is blended with other wines, like Zinfandel. These two grapes are a perfect pair, IMO, because the jammy Zin is bolstered up by the tannic PS, and together they make a great blend.

I've got one Petite Sirah in my wine rack--a 2004 Close LaChance ($35) that I brought home from a trip to Paso Robles last fall--but haven't had a chance to open it yet. Today, my neighbor came over with a mostly-finished-and-recorked bottle of Crane Lake Petite Sirah. "Try this," he said.

More Petite Sirah - Wine of the Week after the jump.