Petite Sirah
California red, shown by DNA typing to be the French grape durif (syrah x peloursin) — mouthfilling and often hugely tannic despite the name.
About the grape
Petite Sirah is the California name for durif, a variety created just before the 1860s by the French botanist François Durif as a cross of syrah and the now-obscure French grape peloursin. Durif has virtually disappeared in France but lives on in California. There is nothing petite about petite sirah: the wine is mouthfilling and often hugely tannic. Over many decades of California's early history other vine types were mixed in among petite sirah vines, creating field blends, and the grape's true identity grew obscure until DNA typing in the 1990s revealed that most California petite sirah is in fact durif. Some of the oldest 'petite sirah' vineyards remain field blends of many varieties — true syrah, durif, carignan, zinfandel, barbera, even grenache — and a minority of so-called petite sirah is simply peloursin.
