Petite Sirah: Taste, History, Regions and Food

Petite Sirah is a dark, full-bodied red wine with big tannins and flavors of blueberry, plum, black pepper and dark chocolate. Despite the name, it isn’t a small Syrah: most Petite Sirah is the French grape Durif, a cross of Syrah and an old Rhône grape called Peloursin, and today it is grown mainly in California and Australia. Pick it when you want a red that is inky, bold and built for grilled meat or the cellar.

What Petite Sirah tastes like

Wine Folly’s profile of the grape:

Trait	Petite Sirah
Sweetness	Dry
Body	Full
Tannin	High, sometimes “aggressive”
Acidity	Medium
Alcohol	Over 15%
Main flavors	Sugarplum, blueberry, dark chocolate, black pepper, black tea

Tannin is the drying, grippy feel that comes from grape skins, and Petite Sirah has a lot of it. Wikipedia describes the wine as dark and inky, with herbal and black pepper aromas and blue and black fruit, especially blueberry.

In our view, color is the giveaway: Petite Sirah is one of the darkest red wines you can buy, and that is exactly why winemakers like to blend a little of it into lighter reds. Our guide to the types of red wine puts it among the boldest reds by body and tannin.

The story: from Dr. Durif to California

A French nursery grape

According to UC Davis’s Wine Grape Varieties in California, a French nurseryman named Durif first propagated the variety in the Rhône Valley in the 1880s, and DNA research at UC Davis shows it is a cross between Syrah and Peloursin. PS I Love You’s timeline dates Dr. François Durif’s release of the variety to 1880, grown from a seed of Peloursin. Wikipedia notes that the grape is now almost nonexistent in France.

Arrival in California

UC Davis says Charles McIver, founder of Linda Vista Winery near Mission San Jose, was the first to bring the vine to California, in 1884, along with other French varieties. He and others were soon calling it “Petite Syrah”, and the name stuck.

Older California “Petite Sirah” vineyards are often mixed plantings, UC Davis notes: mostly Durif, but also including Barbera, Carignane, Peloursin, Syrah and Zinfandel. PS I Love You reports that in 1996 Dr. Carole Meredith and colleagues at UC Davis found that more than 90% of the vines they analyzed as Petite Sirah were Durif, and the rest were Peloursin.

Boom, bust and comeback

UC Davis says Durif was popular in the Central Valley during the 1970s planting boom, mostly to add color and tannin to generic wines. Most of those vines were later removed because of virus problems, disappointing yields, and a tendency to sunburn and shrivel, but the grape has regained some popularity as a niche variety in coastal vineyards.

PS I Love You’s timeline tracks the ups and downs in California acreage:

Year	California acres (PS I Love You)
1930s	About 7,500
1976	About 14,000 (peak)
1995	2,400
2001	Over 4,000

A 2013 Lodi Wine article, citing USDA reports for 2012, put California plantings at 8,335 acres. PS I Love You’s timeline credits Concannon Vineyards with the first varietal Petite Sirah, released in 1964, and says PS I Love You was founded in 2002.

Petite Sirah vs Syrah

The two are family, not twins. “Petite Sirah is the offspring of Syrah,” Dr. Meredith says in PS I Love You’s FAQ: it has Syrah and Peloursin as its parents, so about half its genes come from Syrah. The FAQ adds that it is not a hybrid in the wine sense, since it is pure Vitis vinifera, the European wine grape species.

The spelling adds to the confusion. Wikipedia notes that “Petite Syrah” with a “y” is a common misspelling, and that the term historically referred to a small-berried form of Syrah itself. Our guide to Syrah vs Shiraz explains how Syrah and Shiraz differ in style.

Where it grows

California is the heartland. Wikipedia names Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Monterey and San Joaquin counties among the main areas. In 2013, Lodi Wine reported that Lodi (in San Joaquin County) grew the most, about 2,000 acres, with San Luis Obispo County second at about 1,400.

The vine has quirks that shape where it does well. UC Davis says it has compact clusters that are prone to bunch rot, ripens mid to late season (October in cooler areas), and is likely to sunburn and raisin when vines are stressed in hot weather, so growers avoid overly stressful soils in warm climates.

Elsewhere, Wikipedia lists Australia, where Durif has old plantings in Rutherglen, Victoria, and more in the Riverina and Riverland; Israel, where the first varietal Petite Sirah appeared in 2002; and smaller plantings in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico’s Baja California, Texas and Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula.

Styles and label terms

• Petite Sirah or Durif: the federal list of approved grape names (TTB regulation 27 CFR 4.91) lists “Petite Sirah (Durif)” and “Durif (Petite Sirah)”, so either can appear on a US label. PS I Love You’s timeline says the names became official synonyms in 2011.
• Varietal vs blend: UC Davis notes Durif is often blended to add color and body to lighter reds, and Wikipedia says it is often blended with Zinfandel. Our guide to red blend wine explains how US blend labels work.
• Big vs gentle: the 2013 Lodi Wine article described two camps: full-bodied, dark, oak-driven bottlings and rounder, gentler ones, sometimes blended with Petit Verdot.
• AVA or county name: where the grapes grew, such as Lodi or Napa Valley.

Food pairing

Wine Folly’s rule is to pick fatty and umami-rich dishes to soften the tannin, such as grilled steak or beef stroganoff.

Dish	Why it works
Grilled ribeye or brisket	Fat and char soften strong tannin
Beef stroganoff, short ribs	Rich, savory sauces match the wine’s weight
Barbecue with a smoky, peppery rub	Pepper and smoke echo the wine’s spice
Aged cheddar or Gouda	Salt and fat tame tannin

We’d avoid delicate fish and light salads, which a wine this big will flatten. For steak cuts and sauces, see our guide to wine with steak.

Good-value bottles to try

We don’t list Petite Sirah picks on this page yet. Every pick on Wine Blue Book follows how we rate wine: a published critic score for a named vintage and a US price checked at two or more retailers, and we haven’t completed that check for a Petite Sirah.

What to look for: in our view, Lodi, the biggest source of the grape in the 2013 Lodi Wine report, is a sensible place to start for value. Under our thresholds, a Petite Sirah with 90 to 92 points is a Great Value at $20 or less and a Good Value at $30 or less.

How to serve it

Step	Wine Folly’s advice
Temperature	60–68°F (15–20°C)
Glass	Universal
Decanting	About 1 hour
Cellaring	10+ years

We’d decant young Petite Sirah for the full hour Wine Folly suggests and serve it at the cooler end of the range, so the alcohol doesn’t take over.

Tip: If a young Petite Sirah feels harsh and drying, it isn’t faulty. Give it the hour of air Wine Folly suggests, or serve it with something fatty, such as a marbled steak.