Making the softest Petite Sirah possible

[Boatboy24]

Agree with the others. Stick with PS. Your objective is a soft Petit Sirah. Make a soft Petit Sirah. It will be excellent.

 

[Jay A]

Stay the course! You can always blend prior to bottling.

 

[NorCal]

Stay the course! You can always blend prior to bottling.

That is the dilemma, I need to make the decision today on what wine to put into the barrel. The free run Mourvedre is quite soft, so It meets that objective and while it is blending two wines, it is less than 25%, meeting the criteria to still call it a Petite Sirah.
I think I will re-taste the two PS wines and if I don’t think the pressed PS will deter the final wine from being soft, I’ll include it. Thanks for the feedback.

Late harvest pick, water back to 25-25.5 DONE
- Light crush, all green removed from ferment DONE
- no enzyme or added acid DONE
- 3 day cold soak DONE
- Prelude non-saccharomyces ferment (2-3 days) DONE
- easy on the punch downs DONE
- pull off the skins at 1 brix DONE (.5 brix)
- free run only (if enough juice, .5 bar press max if needed) in process
- no or very little oak, light toast

 

[user 38734]

I would make the best tasting wine possible, i.e., blend the free run MV in lieu of dogmatically holding to your initial plan.

Adapt, improvise and overcome.

 

[Garagista]

I would like to add a counter argument. Petite Sirah is what it is - it's the bully on the playground. If you want something with a better attitude, I would blend it with something softer. Remember the fable about the Frog and Scorpion - at the end, the scorpion says "I cant help it, it's in my nature". PS is the scorpion.

 

[NorCal]

I would like to add a counter argument. Petite Sirah is what it is - it's the bully on the playground. If you want something with a better attitude, I would blend it with something softer. Remember the fable about the Frog and Scorpion - at the end, the scorpion says "I cant help it, it's in my nature". PS is the scorpion.

If I could give 100 likes, I would. I had to watch a YouTube to learn the fable, you have totally captured the situation. PS is by nature big, bold and tannic, not going to change that. Small berries, thick skins result in a wine that is dark as ink, yet also have the harshness that can accompany the vast majority of the single PS that I've had.

 

[NorCal]

I did a taste test of the 40 gallons of free run PS and it was really dark, rich in flavors and very little tannin. The 35 gallons of pressed PS was also dark, rich in flavors, but the tannin was really strong. This astringency is what I was looking to avoid in the wine. I tasted the Mourvedre free run and it was really nice. The decision for me was easy, the barrel is 2/3 free run PS 1/3 free run Mourvedre.

While I know the tannins would have tamed over a few years or I could throw products and hit the 75% or 100% number to call it a PS. However this wine is for my family and friends and I know they wouldn’t care.

So, did I make the softest Petite Sirah possible? Technically no, I wasn’t able to make a satisfactorily soft 60 gallon barrel of Petite Sirah, with the amount of grapes I got. However, I did make the softest Petite Sirah blend that I could and I’m looking forward to how this wine turns out.

 

[NorCal]

I also got a bin of Mourvèdre that I was splitting with a pal. When he showed up I gave him the option of 30g Mourvèdre and 10g PS like we had planned or 30g PS and 10g Mourvèdre. We poured samples of each and I know he likes a big wine, so it was no surprise he chose the 30g of pressed PS. Definitely a win win. I would say it was a perfect ending to the season.
I have the 60g PS/Ved barrel, 20g Ved and 5g of pressed PS. That along with another 30g of other wine wraps up the season.

 

[Snafflebit]

Well, 60 gallons of petite sirah is a lot of wine. That amount of wine needs to be good wine. I bet 100% free run will taste amazing.

if you get the opportunity to sample wine at Turley in Napa or Paso Robles, they make six petite sirah wines. We had the 2019 Napa Valley Petite Sirah last night. We play a game of “Guess That Wine” and I could not guess it but I liked it and when I learned it is PS, I started swearing! LOL. I think they are making Varietal PS in a very drinkable manner.

 

[NorCal]

Well, 60 gallons of petite sirah is a lot of wine. That amount of wine needs to be good wine. I bet 100% free run will taste amazing.

if you get the opportunity to sample wine at Turley in Napa or Paso Robles, they make six petite sirah wines. We had the 2019 Napa Valley Petite Sirah last night. We play a game of “Guess That Wine” and I could not guess it but I liked it and when I learned it is PS, I started swearing! LOL. I think they are making Varietal PS in a very drinkable manner.

I’ll have to find that.

 

[ibglowin]

My source for many hard to source wines has a couple bottles.

https://www.klwines.com/p/i?i=1375213&cid=TPV-Winesearcher

I’ll have to find that.

 

[Snafflebit]

Actually the other Turley tasting room is in Amador, not too far from you @NorCal

and, as another datapoint, tonight I decided to crack open a bottle of 2010 Turnbull Petite Sirah to see if maybe I was being unfairly partial to the Turley wine. I figure 11 years in bottle should tame those PS tannins. Turnbull is a premium Napa Valley winery I expect they know how to make wine, and they do make excellent Cabs and blends. This PS is very tannic at the start and we are powering through the first 15 minutes in the glass and really should have decanted it. The wine gets better after 30 minutes but it’s not lovely and I end up with a tongue as inky black as a Chow-Chow. Not a premium experience! There is no question that the Turley PS is better.

 

[NorCal]

MLF is done and I racked the 67/33 PS blend barrel and the 5 gallons of 100% pressed PS that I retained. The barrel had a minor off smell, so went out of my way to splash rack and gave it a full dose of SO2. All better. The tannin of the 5 gallons of pressed PS had calmed way, way down! I mean 80% of the way down.

I‘m now having remorse that I didn’t use the 20 gallons of pressed PS in the barrel, instead of the free run Ved. I guess I can only make the best decisions I can make at the time and learn from what I would have done different In the future.

Its not that I think the barrel will be bad, rather, I would have preferred a 100% PS, just so I could have proved to myself that I could do what I had set out to do.

 

[crushday]

MLF is done and I racked the 67/33 PS blend barrel and the 5 gallons of 100% pressed PS that I retained. The barrel had a minor off smell, so went out of my way to splash rack and gave it a full dose of SO2. All better. The tannin of the 5 gallons of pressed PS had calmed way, way down! I mean 80% of the way down.

I‘m now having remorse that I didn’t use the 20 gallons of pressed PS in the barrel, instead of the free run Ved. I guess I can only make the best decisions I can make at the time and learn from what I would have done different In the future.

Its not that I think the barrel will be bad, rather, I would have preferred a 100% PS, just so I could have proved to myself that I could do what I had set out to do.

I appreciate everything about this string. It makes us all better!

 

[winemaker81]

I‘m now having remorse that I didn’t use the 20 gallons of pressed PS in the barrel, instead of the free run Ved.

You made the best decision you could based upon the available knowledge.

If you had used the pressed PS, you'd actually be farther from your goal, regardless of how much tannin it dropped. Besides, making a soft PS/Mourvedre is also a tremendous accomplishment!

Another accomplishment is that you are inspiring some of your compatriots on WMT to make specialized wines. Threads like this are idea factories.

 

[CDrew]

What a good thread, thanks for documenting the progress. No second guessing! I agree that you made the best decision in real time that you could, and it will be great in the end. Your 67/33 blend may well be superior to the straight PS. I'd call it PS on the label without hesitation. I'll be very curious to taste (or trade) in a few years once it's mature.

 

[NorCal]

I did a barrel tasting and the wine is defintely asking for some oak. I have gravitated toward medium French oak. I just like the more subtle notes that French oak adds. I purchased a barrel spiral pack for $81 and added 4 of the 6 spirals in the neutral barrel. The 6 spirals is suppose to give 90-100% of a new barrel...so I added 60%-67% the equivalent of a medium toast new barrel. Maybe a little heavier on the oak than I originally planned, but I think it will complement this big, dark wine.

Late harvest pick, water back to 25-25.5 DONE
- Light crush, all green removed from ferment DONE
- no enzyme or added acid DONE
- 3 day cold soak DONE
- Prelude non-saccharomyces ferment (2-3 days) DONE
- easy on the punch downs DONE
- pull off the skins at 1 brix DONE (.5 brix)
- free run only (if enough juice, .5 bar press max if needed) DONE
- no or very little oak, light toast CLOSE

 

[user 32114]

I’ll be getting a bin (1,000 lb) of late harvest (27+ brix) Petite Sirah (PS) next week. I’ve drank more PS that I did didn’t like than PS that I’ve enjoyed. The tannin and gripiness of the wine has made it not all that enjoyable to me, unless I’m eating a big fat steak. My goal is to make a dark, fruit forward, soft, smooth Petite Sirah that is approachable at an early age.

plan:
- super clean sort, no stems, no jacks
- water back to 25.5-26.0
- conservative on any acid adjustment, living with a 3.8 wine
- easy on the punch downs
- pull off the skins at 1 brix
- free run only into the barrel
- easy on the oak; 2nd year equivalent French oak, medium toast

Any other ideas?
View attachment 78516
Picture of my retired barrels care of @4score.

NOW your after a old hillbilly's heart, is that a metal post covered in duct tape ? ,,, LMAO
Dawg

 

[NorCal]

NOW your after a old hillbilly's heart, is that a metal post covered in duct tape ? ,,, LMAO
Dawg

Hey @hounddawg, I think you are refering to this pole with the red arrow? It is part of a horse paddock partition, just a big galvanized pipe.

 

[user 32114]

Hey @hounddawg, I think you are refering to this pole with the red arrow? It is part of a horse paddock partition, just a big galvanized pipe.

View attachment 82339

yup i see now, eyes are going
Dawg