Petit Sarah Wine

Petit Sarah wine is a red wine produced from the Durif grape. The United States Petit Sarah and Durif are synonymous. The wine has a tannic taste resulting in a spice like plum flavour.

This wine may be aged for as long as 20 years in a bottle.

This grape is grown in California, Australia, France, and Israel. In recent years wineries located in Washington's Yakima River Valley, Maryland, Arizona, West Virginia, Chile, Mexico's Baja Peninsula, and Ontario's Niagara Peninsula have also produced wines from Durif grapes.

The grape is named after François Durif, a botanist at the University of Montpellier. It was in a Peloursin vineyard near the university that he discovered the unique vine that he named for himself in 1880.

In addition to being produced as a varietal wine, the grape is sometimes blended with Zinfandel. In years when heavy rain or excess sun has weakened the quality or yield of Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir plantings, Petite Sirah may also be used as a blending partner to strengthen the wine.

The average age of Petite Sirah vines tends to be older than that of most Californian vines.

While not one of the officially sanctioned grapes of the Côtes du Rhône AOC, Petite Sirah's linking to Durif caused the California's Rhone Rangers to add the grape to its listings of wine in 2002.

Petite Sirah is sometimes mistakenly spelled "Petite Syrah," which has historically referred to the small berries of the Syrah grape by Rhône growers. In California, immigrant vine growers introduced Syrah in 1878 and used the phrase "Petite Syrah" to refer to the lower yields that the vines then were producing in California. Actual Petite Sirah (Durif) was then introduced in 1884.

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