Cross-posted from main thread:
EmilyTitusVineyards wrote:We'll be taking questions from both Wine Woot and U-Stream - we like options
Alright, here we go.
Tell me everything you can about your PS!
1. Your website says that you used to source from others, but now grow your own. Or which sub-appellation(s) in Napa Valley? -- the website says it's 40 acres just north of St. Helena. (I personally like the Silverado Trail side much better than the Rt. 29 side, less traffic and it's prettier, and much less touristy) Do you use everything you grow, or do you source to others? And if so, whom?
2. Your website also says that you decided to plant your own PS after sourcing from others for many years. How old are your PS vines? Which clone(s) did you choose and how did you make this choice?
3. What sort of toast do you use on the new (33%) and 2-yr old (67%) (at least for the 2006), which the 2006 PS aged in? How did you determine that 19 months was an appropriate aging time?
4. I was one of the woot labrats for the 2004 Lot 1 and loved it. As a PS aficionado, and having previously tried the Michael-David Petite Petit, it was a very interesting experience. How would you compare the 2005 to the '04 in terms of the Lot 1?
5. Similarly, I have a (as-yet unopened) 2005 Titus PS. How would you compare the '06?
6. Your website suggests not aging your PS for longer than 10 years. Is that from vintage or from release? Emily has, during the Lot 1 offering, suggested that the Lot 1 will age for up to 12-15 years.
7. We had Kent Rasmussen on here, share his many experiences with very old and aged petite sirah:
KRWINE wrote:Kent here
It seems to me that Petite Sirah is one of the most interesting wines when it comes to the issue of aging and drinking. Young PS is big, rich, usually pretty tannic and above all full of luscious fruit. Funnily enough, unlike a Cab. Sauv., even though they are structurally huge, they are still very drinkable when they are young—mostly because of the charm of all the wonderful fruit. Once a PS is about 10-15 years old it usually starts to go through a “dumb” phase as it loses it’s fruit, but then when they get really old – 20-25 years they come around again like no other wine I have ever had….wonderful rich Bordeaux-like complexity…tons of that cedar-cigar box character that you always associate with really nice old clarets. So my recommend is drink them young or let them sit forever—most PS have the structure to handle the age.
What made me “an expert” on old PS: A few years ago there was a small wine shop in the San Francisco Bay Area that bought people’s cellars. He also bought our wine, but unfortunately, while the fellow who ran the shop was a nice guy, he didn’t pay his bills. One day I was in the shop (collecting a bill) and he had dozens of bottles from the late 1960s to about 1980 of California PS on a table…I said…why? And he told me that when he resold the wine he bought from collections he could never get anyone to take the PS. I made a deal with him that we would trade a bottle of our wine for a bottle of PS…he got something he could sell and I got paid. Over the course of the next year or so (before the IRS caught him) we traded about a hundred bottles and Celia and I had old old PS for dinner several nights each week. These were the great old fathers of PS…Concannon, Burgess, Freemark Abbey, Ridge, and so on. Other than an occasional corky bottle we never had a single one that was “over the hill”. It was a treat and a rare opportunity to learn about old PS.
Do you have any similar experiences with PS that old? What is your take on its aging profile and "dumb period(s)"?
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PSychos' Path
"The one difference between me and Petite Sirah is that I don't have a dumb period." - YT
