Most of the visitors to our tasting room are familiar with our wines, but there is still the occasion when I will overhear one of our hosts having to coax a customer into trying our Petite Sirah. “I don’t care for Petite Sirah. It’s too dry for me” is the typical refrain. This is a common reaction to Petite Sirah. The ‘dry’ isn’t the absence of sugar but rather the reaction to the astringent tannins that so often accompany Petite Sirah. The extract of Petite Sirah can shut down salivary glands and parch one’s mouth as it welds lips to gums. These are characteristics we don’t find particularly attractive either and so our goal is to produce a Petite Sirah that has the flavor and color of Petite Sirah but is also approachable without requiring a decade of aging in the cellar. To accomplish this, we purchase our Petite Sirah grapes from Enver and Joe Salman. They have been growing Petite Sirah in their vineyard on Sutter Island in the Clarksburg appellation for over five decades. Clarksburg is an appellation that produces Petite Sirah that has a softer more approachable texture than Petite Sirah grown in most coastal regions. Sourcing the grapes from Enver and Joe is a big first step. Next, we gently mix the fermenting must, by hand, submerging the skins back into the juice during fermentation. We do this three times each day for about a week paying special attention not to damage the seeds, a source of green, pitchy, and bitter tannins. Once the fermentation is complete, the young wine is pressed directly into barrels with new French oak Innerstaves which provides a rich creaminess that for many tasters imparts a suggestion of sweetness. The result is that once our guest is convinced to try our Petite Sirah it is likely that the taster will smile and comment, “I never knew Petite Sirah could taste like this.” I describe our style of Petite Sirah as providing all the assets and none of the liabilities; deep color and rich flavor but without the assaulting grip so commonly associated with Petite Sirah.
