2004 Parducci "True Grit" Petite Sirah, Mendocino, California
If you don’t read many other food and wine blogs, you may have forgotten about Wine Blogging Wednesday, the monthly, Internet-wide tasting event. I typically forget about the event until I see everyone else’s posts, at which point it’s too late for me to join in.
But this month, one of the wines I drank lined up with Sonadora’s “Que Sirah Sirah” theme, an homage to Petite Sirah; I’d have no excuse for not posting.
Parducci’s “True Grit” Petite Sirah from Mendocino ($25) has the intense black color and blueberry aromas I associate with this grape, but the strong whiff of star anise and toast smells more like the wine’s barrel. That star anise flavor continues on the palate, with a deep black cherry taste that finishes with a hint of cough syrup on the medium finish, perhaps a by-product of the 14.5 percent alcohol. Since I normally think of Petite Sirah as a tannic, robust grape — small grapes give a higher skin-to-juice ratio — I was surprised to find a lightweight wine with subtle, fine-grained tannins and a mouth-gripping acidity. This is a wine I’d serve with grilled magret de canard, the fatty breast of a foie gras duck, especially if I had garnished it with a dark-fruit sauce.
This wine was sent to me as a sample.
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