Petite Sirah
Blend: 100% Petite Sirah
Vineyard & AVA: Lago Vineyard, Templeton Gap District, Paso Robles
Alcohol:15.5%
Aging: Enjoy now, or lay down for 10-15 years.
THE SONG
“Win” is a track that Jay Rock dropped when he was just making a name for himself. His was a one-track mind, wanting to win at all costs, and willing to spend any effort in pursuit of that goal. For me, Petite Sirah is a grape that shows incredible tenacity and is really starting to establish a name for itself, especially in Paso, where it ripens beautifully.
This is a grape that countless wine drinkers have already fallen in love with, and haven’t even known it–it finds its way into many popular “red blend” wines due to the power and concentration it provides. California goes big, and not much goes bigger than Petite Sirah. We love to make and drink it, Paso loves to grow it, and that’s a win-win.
Vintage Notes
2019 will go down as the greatest cool-weather vintage of the decade, maybe even further back than that. Cool vintages produce excellent wines. Fruit hangs on the vine longer, developing more complexity, revealing more depth of character, leaner fruit profiles, and more prominent minerality in the finished wines.
It’s like God copy-pasted the 2011 vintage, then erased all the problematic weather events that plagued us eight years ago. The 2019 vintage that our region has been releasing will be cherished now and for years to come, as they are lively and approachable at the moment, while possessing the litheness to age gracefully for another decade or more.
Vinification
100% destemmed, fermented on native yeast, on skin for 14-18 days. Aged for 29 months in 265L French oak barriques, 100% new.
Tasting Notes
The only thing about this wine that’s “petite” is the size of the berries we harvest. They say great things come in small packages, and this wine is as great as it is massive in the glass. This wine is not about finesse; it’s about power. I’ve aged it in 100% new Hungarian oak barrels for 29 months for some spice, and sourced the fruit from the Dusi family’s Lago Vineyard in the Templeton Gap District. The wine is deep and dark, inky purple with aromatics of super ripe red and blue fruits, roasted black plum, cool mint and dark chocolate. Black cherry liqueur and black-plum flavors meet with toasty oak on the palate, which is framed by polished tannins. It’s a Win-Win.
$85