The Wine Knows

For the next several days, I will be hunting for great examples of one of my favorite wines: Petite Sirah.

As I'm fond of saying, this wine is neither petite nor Syrah. Rather, this Rhone Valley variety is a big, bold, blustering red that takes no prisoners and ages beautifully.

It's called Petite Sirah because its grapes are small, and its parentage includes Syrah. Most Petite Sirah in the world is grown in California, but a few are popping up in the Pacific Northwest. So far, Thurston Wolfe Winery in Prosser, Wash., is making one of the best versions, using fruit from the Horse Heaven Hills. On Thursday, we tasted a new Petite Sirah from Arbor Crest Wine Cellars in Spokane. It is an amazing wine and renews my hope that this wine will catch on in the warmer areas in the Pacific Northwest.

Meanwhile, the Wine Press Northwest crew will be headed to Napa and Sonoma over the next several days. Our ultimate destination is Cloverdale, Calif., for the first big wine judging of the year: the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. No doubt we'll be blogging along the way.

We are driving in part so we can visit with a few winemakers in Southern Oregon. But I'm really interested in purchasing as much Petite Sirah as I can, and it is easier to drive than to try to get it onto an airplane these days.

Want to learn more about this fabulous grape? Check out the Web site for this advocacy group.