2020 Lytton Estate Petite Sirah

Midnight purple in color with medium-full to full body. Rich black currant and plum on the nose. Complex and well-structured, with supple tannin, juicy bramble fruit, and notes of cardamom spice and smoked meat. MB (6/23)

Petite Sirah is most frequently a complementary variety to zinfandel in traditional field blends. At Lytton Estate, since 1992, we have made it as a stand alone wine. Here in the loamy-clay soils, it thrives, producing compact clusters of very small, concentrated berries. True to the nature of this grape, the 2020 is deeply colored, rustic and capable of aging for at least ten years. JO (4/22)

The oldest petite sirah vines on our Lytton Estate were planted in 1901 and the youngest in 2008. We made our first wine from the property in 1972. In 2002, we began bottling portions of the petite sirah as a separate wine for a limited release. Up until then it had always been included in the Lytton Springs Zinfandel. In 2003 we made another limited release and in 2009 our first national release.

Rainfall: 8 inches (below normal)
Bloom: Late May
Weather: Winter rains were light this year. Yields were average, with good ripeness.

Harvest Dates: 7 – 10 September
Grapes: Average Brix 23.5˚
TA: 6.44 g/L
pH: 3.68
Fermentation: Whole berry fermentation. Natural primary and secondary; limited pump-overs to once daily.
Barrels: 100% air-dried American oak barrels (25% new and 75% five years old).
Aging: Seventeen months in barrel

Hand-harvested organic estate-grown grapes, de-stemmed and whole-berry fermented on the native yeasts; full malolactic on the naturally-occurring bacteria; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35 ppm at crush, 74 ppm over the course of aging); pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.

See all food pairing recipes we have created specifically for this wine.