Looking back at our five most popular Petite Sirah sales, Laughinghouse made two of them. We’ve got their newest vintage, which Laughinghouse calls “significantly better than previous vintages”. With a claim like that, we had to try this wine. Guess what? They’re right! Today’s 2015 The Worker Sierra Foothills Petite Sirah is a powerhouse.

This Petite Sirah has a gorgeously dark core of obsidian with the thinnest lip of bright violet around the outer edge. Petite Sirah can be a challenging grape, but this is a perfect example of why it’s a winemaker favorite. It can produce an incredible nose such as this one, replete with lychee, mango, bramble, raspberry, spice, and hibiscus. The palate is much meatier, with hickory, bramble, coffee, anise, blackberry, and cherry flavors. It’s just very approachable, especially so for a Petite, with nice bitey acidity driving the fruit and holding the tannin in check. The flavors that linger during the long finish are especially pleasant. This could quench the fire of a spicy dish, and generally calls for red meat, so a big bowl of bulgogi, Korean beef BBQ, would be perfect.

Petite Sirah, which is also known as Durif, is a variety of red wine grape primarily grown in Australia, California, France, and Israel. It produces wines that are usually quite tannic and possess a spicy, plum-like flavor.

The grape originated as a cross of Syrah pollen germinating a Peloursin plant. In the 1860s the French botanist François Durif kept a nursery of several grape varieties at his home in the commune of Tullins where he most likely had plantings of both Peloursin and Syrah. At some point, the two vines cross-pollinated and Durif discovered a new grape variety growing in his nursery.

Get your purple on and stock up on this wine, which will be great for another ten years… or longer!