This wine is so dark and inky that I can’t believe how pretty it also it. It is massivly floral and hugely savory and has layer upon layer of spice. Cherry pie, olive tapenade, blueberry, dark chocolate, black pepper, leather and black tea.
I want to eat lamb loin, chicken piccata, black garlic on rosemary focaccia, or duck confit with this bad boy.
This wine fermented with 5% whole cluster, and aged for 27 months in neutral French oak.
4 barrels produced.
2018 Ultima Tulie Petite Sirah
$52.00
“Petite Sirah has been bastardized and I want to bring respect to it again. I am trying to find the delicacy in it. It feels a little uncharted still.”
Let’s talk about Petite Sirah. This one comes from two vineyard sites. Shell Creek Vineyard is named for its marine limestone soils, which you may also remember as the vineyard source for the Major Wine Valdiguié. The climate of warm days and cool night lends itself to high minerality in the wines. The other vineyard is a dry farmed organic vineyard on the west side of Paso Robles, called Kukkula.
The thing that makes this Petite Sirah truly distinct to me is the method by which it is fermented. Called délestage in France, and Rack-and-Return in America, this is a two-step process in which fermenting red wine must is separated from the solids by racking and then returning to the fermentation vessel to re-soak the solids.
Racking the fermenting juice oxygenates, or aerates, the wine and softens astringent tannins through oxidation. During délestage, the cap falls to the bottom of the vat while the wine is allowed to drain completely. Once the wine is completely racked, a portion of the grape seeds is removed to avoid imparting the harsh tannins in seeds to the wine.
In simple terms, this can make the wine softer and less astringent so doing it on a Petite Sirah will make it far more feminine and pretty than you expect.