Petite Sirah, what is it good for?

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):

That said, I think Ridge's York Creek PS are among the best terroir-driven wines of California. Echoing Claude, many of those monolithic 70s Petite Sirahs aged and improved for years. In fact the 1975 Ridge and Freemark Abbey York Creek Pets were superb at a tasting just a few years ago and in no danger of going over the hill.

On the blending side, many winemakers prize the structure, color and hint of blackberries and pepper that a bit of PS can add to a wine. I would add that to my taste, the blend of 80-90% Zin/10-20% PS is a classic.
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Agree about Ridge, though I think it takes those wines a very long time to show their real stuff. And it's no Monte Bello.

On the blending side, there are many excellent examples to support you.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm: Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards had some really attractive bottlings that you didn't have to wait for labelled as Durif.
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NOTE: The dialogue in this thread about Pets brings back memories. Apologies if I posted this before!

Nostalgic look back!

Back in the '80s and '90s, there was a quite tightly knit Prodigy Wine Board that was hugely active. I can remember numerous times when JoAnne would call me to something (like dinner, etc.), then call me again to something (like dinner, etc.), and I would reply "Okay, okay, I only have a few more messages I must deal with."

I was shuffling through some old files this evening and ran across what I have always considered the finest, most classic spontaneous posting I have encountered on a wine board.

It was back in 1990. Ah, those were the hey days of the *P* Wine Board. There were many Board members, most of them now elsewhere, and all members were equal, and contributed mightily to an *P* Wine Board of amazing vitality. And every day brought a new revelation somehow revolving around wine.

In October 1990, I had just posted on a lengthy tasting of old Zins and Petite Sirahs. The note included a slew of Petite Sirahs (or perhaps more accurately, Durifs) from the decade of the '70s. One of the highlights was a SCMV Durif '78 produced by Ken Burnap who was a Board member at that time. The following was a reply Ken posted giving his reminiscences, much to the delight and amusement of all.

Pete, I enjoyed your notes on the older Pets. As I was reading them and noticed that my '78 Durif was included, a flood of memories, more like a nightmare, came to me.

The '78 was the first Durif that I made. In fact, it was the first time that I went a distance away to get fruit from someplace other than Santa Cruz Mountains. The owner seemed like a nice guy, his vines were well tended and the fruit looked great. He said he would only have a couple of tons and I had a 2 ton truck, so I made the 3 hour drive down to his ranch. I got there about mid afternoon, it was hot, they were still picking and he kindly offered me a cool drink and place in the shade to enjoy it. Meanwhile the workers would load my truck for me. Naive error #1.

When the truck was finally loaded at eight that evening, the boxes were stacked higher than elephant's eye, so to speak, with what later turned out 6 tons on a 2 ton truck. Full of cool drink, I decided to go for it rather than have them partially unload the truck. Stupid error #2.

After tip-toeing the truck through the vineyard, I finally got to the highway and slowly built up speed to about 40 mph, only to discover at the first curve that I had no steerage as the front end would lift off the ground at that speed. After some terrifying trial and error, I found that I could influence the direction of the truck at about 22 mph.

After incredible luck on timing the Highway Patrolmen's coffee breaks and an ingenious detour around a weight station, I arrive back at the winery at around 3 AM. I'm home. I'm alive. The grapes are still on the truck and all I have left to do is creep up the very steep driveway to the winery. Naive & stupid mistake #3.

About half way up the hill the front end of the truck rose slowly to the black sky like an overweight albatross trying to take off with a 30 lb salmon, tipped backward until the bed hit the ground and then started sliding sideways back down the hill, finally coming to rest, wedged in the cliff on the side of the driveway.

Miraculously, all but about six boxes of grapes remained tied to the truck and the next morning we eventually got them to the fermentation tank. The wine turned out to be a good one, as your notes indicate, but around here it will always be known as the Durif from Hell.

Ah, the romance of winemaking.

KDB
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. . . . . Pete
 
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