Sirah, sirah

<p>As the wine cognoscenti have liked to point out for years, petite sirah is neither the same as syrah nor in any way petite.</p><p>Despite all the confusion, people love its rustic, deeply tannic ability to stain everything in sight purple and its ability to cut through meaty, wintertime dishes, too.</p><p>“It's a winemaker's wine,” said Jo Diaz, of PS I Love You, a petite sirah fan group headquartered in Windsor. “Winemakers love the challenge of taming the shrew. Most of the petite sirah that's made never leaves tasting rooms. It's being sold directly to consumers who love petite for its rich flavors.”</p><p>Diaz has been tracking the growing popularity of petite sirah since 2002 and says 99 percent of it is made in California.</p><p>“When I first began to advocate for petite sirah, there were only a handful of growers and producers combined who had any association with it as a varietal, only 62 of them,” she said. “Today, there are over 1,000, only nine years later.”</p><p>Wine reviewer Steve Heimoff, who tastes thousands of California wines every year for the magazine “Wine Enthusiast,” noted that petite sirah came onto his radar stronger than ever in 2011.</p><p>“Vintners have refined their style to make petite sirah less brawny and more elegant,” he explained. “Although it will never be sleek or refined. But then you wouldn't want petite sirah to be, any more than you'd want Jack Black to have a six-pack.”</p><p>Diaz also attributes its success these days to the fact that it's a heritage variety.</p><p>“It's got a very colorful past. People don't know how to spell it, but they love drinking it. It's got all the elements of what makes something a ‘cult' phenomenon. I've also rooted for the underdog, the ugly duckling,” she said.</p><p>“Dark and Delicious” is the name of PS I Love You's annual food and wine tasting event, to be held at Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda on Feb. 17. (www.psiloveyou.org/2011/09/13/whats-dark-delicious)</p><p>“I've had a longstanding relationship with this grape,” said Rock Wall's winemaker, Shauna Rosenblum. “Growing up in the cellar at Rosenblum (Cellars), I was fascinated by zinfandel because it was so fruity and chocolaty-smelling, but I remember being in awe of petite sirah because it was so dark.”</p><p>Rosenblum thought it particularly funny that a wine with the word “petite” in it would stain her feet so darkly purple when she'd foot-stomp the grapes.</p><p>“As I got older and was allowed to try the wines, petite sirah was intimidating but exciting,” she added. “I remember tasting the Rosenblum Kick Ranch Petite Sirah and just pausing in pleasure, tasting Applewood smoked bacon, fresh, juicy blueberry cream pie and white pepper in my mouth simultaneously.”</p><p>Now making her own wines, Rosenblum finds petite sirah a great varietal to work with because of how versatile it can be. She particularly likes to blend it with zinfandel, making a 50-50 blend from Lake County fruit called Obsidian, which she describes as fun, spicy, spunky and fruity. (www.rockwallwines..com)</p><p>Rosenblum plays with different vineyard sites to find nuances in petite sirah, sourcing from Carver Sutro Vineyard in Calistoga, Carpy-Connolly Ranch in Rutherford, Rucker Vineyards outside of Ukiah, Black Rock Ranch in Lake County and Windsor Oaks Vineyards in Windsor.</p><p>“As a vineyard designate, petite sirah is beautiful because of the amount of minerality it seems to retain,” she said. “All of these petites are radically different, but they all show a supple amount of minerality which helps make all the coffee, bacon, chocolate fudge brownie, pepper and meaty qualities balanced, so it's very enjoyable to drink.”</p><p>She adds that we're probably seeing a surge in the petite sirah market for the same reasons wine drinkers are loving South American varietals such as malbec, tannat and carmenere, because the wines are big, bold and exotic.</p><p>Domestically made, petite sirah is also more often than not quite reasonably priced, which makes it attractive to anyone on the hunt for something different.</p><p>“If someone brings a bottle to a friend's house for dinner, they open it, pour it and that's followed by a serious wow moment,” Rosenblum said, “when everyone sticks their glass up in the air and revels in how dark the wine is.”</p><p>Craig Becker, winemaker at Somerston Wine Company, makes a petite sirah under his Priest Ranch label, sourcing the fruit from Somerston Ranch, where it grows at two different elevations, 820 feet and 2,400 feet. (somerstonwineco.com/visit)</p><p>“It is the most challenging varietal I grow,” he said. “The clusters are small and tight, much like pinot noir, but the skins are thick and need time to develop the tannins. The hang time is essential to get smooth tannins in the finished wine. I love to drink petite sirah because it goes with so many foods.”</p><p>At historic Foppiano Vineyards in Healdsburg, winemaker Natalie West has six blocks of both old and new vines with which to blend.</p><p>To keep the wine from being over-extracted, she treats it very gently, like she would a pinot noir, employing open-top fermenters and punching down the wine three times a day for color extraction. Then she uses a limited amount of new and neutral French and Hungarian oak to add complexity and depth. (www.foppiano.com)</p><p>“At harvest it's important to be patient with petite sirah,” she said. “You need to be sure the tannins are ripe. Ripe tannins can almost be nutty, whereas unripe tannins are harsh and can ruin the wine.”</p><p>When done right, she says, petite sirah's approachable notes of ripe blackberry, plum, blueberry and vanilla make it the ideal wine for a slate of comfort foods, including winter stews, grilled meats and hot pizza from the oven, as well as hearty aged cheeses.</p><p>“The structure and dark red fruit flavors are attractive to many, but let's not forget that petite sirah is not for everyone,” added Becker. “Some say the varietal is too tannic. I am trying to change that with the extended hang time.”</p><p>Virginie Boone is a freelance wine writer based in Sonoma County. She can be reached at virginieboone@yahoo.com.</p>