94 Points  Editors Pick !  click here for review

Esoterica

Rutherford, Napa Valley

Chavez-Leed Vineyard, CERTIFIED ORGANIC GRAPES

Vineyard Source   Frank and Beth Leed's Vineyard in Rutherford

Chemistry at harvest:  Brix: 25.4    pH: 3.65 Total Acidity 5.0 grams/liter
Date of Harvest: September 8, 2007
Quantity Produced: 442 cases (12 x 750ml)

Date of Bottling: November 3, 2008

Barrels: 12 months in 50% new and 50% one year old French oak

Chemistry at bottling:    pH: 3.95    Total Acidity 5.7 grams/liter   Alcohol: 13.34%   Free Sulfur Dioxide: 29 ppm    Total Sulfur Dioxide: 69 ppm

I have been making wine out of these wonderful grapes for 18 vintages now.  Each year, the grower and I learn a bit more about how to grow the grapes more perfectly, and I learn a little more about how to make the wine better.  This wine has been my favorite “pets” project for years and years now, and I never get tired of drinking the result!

While Petite Sirah started out in France as a minor variety of the Rhone , it is no longer grown there and is only grown to a tiny extent, under the name “Durif”, anywhere else in the world.  One could say that Petite Sirah, at this point, is THE grape of California .  Every winemaker I know thinks of it as their favorite grape.  What makes “pets” so good?  Hard to say, it just is perfect—perfect fruit, perfect weight, and perfect structure, wonderful to drink young, even better to drink old.

This wine is a winner.  It is immense, it will take no hostages, it will sooth, it will please, and in the end you will be pouring out your other wines because they just don’t satisfy you anymore…you will never want to drink anything but (this) Petite Sirah again!