2021 - Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, Dry Creek Valley

Comprising 100% Petite Sirah from Ridge’s Lytton Estate in the Dry Creek Valley, the 2021 Petite Sirah Estate is a brooding, savory, forbiddingly tannic red that clubs you over the head with power and intensity. Leather, oil-cured olive, lavender and sappy blackberry fruit run through this particularly rustic, animalistic edition of Lytton Petite. The fruit is plush and velvety beneath the monstrous structure, but it’s going to take a while to settle this beast down.

The 2021 Petite Sirah Lytton Estate opens with initial touches of tar and struck flint that give way to black cherries and currants, wild thyme, pencil shavings, coffee grounds and earth. The full-bodied palate is elegantly styled, its chalky tannins nestled into concentrated, perfumed flavors. Its vibrant acidity adds to its elegance, and it has a long, latent finish. Give it 3–5 years in bottle.

From the bottle: 'A dry winter brought only 13" of rain. All eight Petite Sirah parcels were harvested between September first and September twenty-fourth and fermented separately. Of those, seven were chosen for their depth of colour and rich texture. To manage tannin extraction, pumpovers were limited to once daily ... Ingredients: hand-harvested, organic grapes, indigenous yeast, naturally occurring malolactic bacteria, oak from barrel-ageing, minimum effective SO2.' Bottled April 2023. Deep ruby with a touch of purple. Savoury, meaty, with sweaty leather, black plum, and an iron tang. Mouth-coating, powdery tannin that inches up one’s gums. As is often the case with Petite Sirah, this shows more structure than fruit – begs for something fatty to cut it and coax out the fruit. Quite classic for the variety. (SCJ)