Petite Sirah the mystery uncovered

Wines & Vines, Sept, 2000 by Dennis Fife

3. For over 100 years, Petite Sirah has been regularly referred to by the industry and in the American press a a Rhone variety. There are numerous reasons to continue to do so.

Petite Sirah has helped raise the reputation and awareness of Syrah by adding the intrigue of its mysterious origins linked to the Rhone and Syrab And Syrah has benefited from the zeal of Petite Sirah fanatics wanting to learn everything about Syrah. In fact, many of us find that the fans of our Petite Sirah are the same customers who avidly buy our Syrah. For example, when those of us who produce both, bring Petite Sirah and Syrah to a tasting, the press, trade, and consumers alike want to taste them side by side. They find this educational and fun. They love the idea that America has "its own Rhone variety", and they want to see in what way the two varieties taste different. If one is a Petite Sirah fan, it is natural to want to try Syrah and vice versa. In this way, association with Petite Sirah has long attracted consumers to Syrah--and other Rhone wines as well.

Syrah and Petite Syrah wines can be close in flavor and texture that even experts have a difficult time telling them apart--and the better the wine, the more this is true. At Fife Vineyards, we have a wonderful Napa Valley vineyard with alluvial soils with lots of rocks. In this vineyard we have young Syrah planted in 1990 next to Petite Sirah planted in the 1950s. Our most successful wine, Max Cuvee is made from a blend of these two blocks. We find that vintage to vintage we have wide swings in the blend depending upon the quality and character of each block in a given year. From time to time, we also make a barrel or so of the Syrah and one of the Petite Syrah from this vineyard just to better understand the components of Max Cuvee. When made identically and aged in top Burgundian barrels, the more elegant, longer finished wine more often than not is the Petite Sirah--which DNA studies of our vines confirms is Durif. All three of these wines have been rated very highly in the wine press with the blend, Max Cuvee, being most reviewers and consumers top choice.

We typically have blind tastings of California's top Syrahs and Petite Sirahs every few months. Our guests are all quite knowledgeable, all in the wine business, and about half are Syrah winemakers. We have yet to have a tasting where it was possible to separate the Syrahs from Petite Sirahs with any confidence. And often no one identifies them all correctly. (Our experience is that low-quality Syrah tends to be light, out of balance, and with little character and low-quality Petite Sirah tends to be rough and tannic. Thus they are fairly easy to separate. But great wines of these two varieties are separated mostly by winemaking style and the terroir. Petite Sirah tends to be pretty dense, but so are many top Syrahs--and so are many of our favorite wines from the Cote Rotie).

When it comes to Rhone blends at Fife Vineyards, our preference is to include at least a little Petite Sirah in every blend. Petite Sirah tends to be tasted in the end palate so even in small amounts Petite Sirah can add length and density to the blend without becoming dominant. In fact, it blends so well with the other Rhone varieties that its parentage is obvious. We all know that grape varieties express themselves differently in different terroirs. If we as winegrowers in California are striving to produce the character, flavor, and texture of some of the finest wines in the Rhone today, particularly in the blended wines, Petite Sirah would appear to be a key ingredient to provide the density, fullness, and white pepper spices characteristic of many of the finest wines in the Rhone. As a reminder: Durif was not approved for A.O.C. status in the Rhone Valley because of the propensity of Durif to develop grey rot in a humid climate. (However, it was approved for A.O.C. status in the less humid climate of Pal ette in Provence). But, one only has to try Durif (Petite Sirah) in a few blends and it is obvious that Durif would have been approved for A.O.C. status in the Rhone if the Rhone had California's climate.