TN: 2003 Outpost Petite Sirah (USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain)

WINE TALK
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  • 2003 Outpost Petite Sirah - USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain (6/7/2009)
    Opened up the bottle and had a bit of a funk to the nose, so had one small taste to gauge and let decant for an hour. Came back to it and the funk had calmed down, but not gone.( I am thinking some percentage or more of the whole cluster is dominating the nose) Upon the first taste after decant, Deep blakcberry with hints of blueberry. Good silky mouth feel, but it seemed somewhat one demensional(not bad, but not a lot of layers in it, yet.) okay finish, but some heat was there. On day two, pretty much the same. Usually, I have higher expectations on day two, especially for a petit. While it was better on day two, specifically the finish and heat had toned down(although it was not that dominant on day one, but it was there) I do not see this peeking anymore than it has. I nice wine, but will probably stay where it is with only subtle changes.

Posted from CellarTracker

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Sean - the Petite Sirah’s see NO whole cluster at all.

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Tony,

Wow, thanks. There is a funk on the nose for sure, I only thought it might have been some type of whole cluster, but either way it goes down(not gone, but down with an hour of decant)

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Thanks for the note. I am always torn on whether to open a bottle of petite sirah with less than 10 years of age on it. The vast majority I have opened young come across as one dimensional as you experienced with this bottle. And having barrel sampled some at Outpost it seemed to me that it would take that long for the wines to shed their tannin to come into balance and express the fruit and complexity.

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I gotta admit, I am not a huge fan of Petite Sirah. That being said, Traci took a bottle of 01 Outpost Petite Sirah to a steak dinner at Larkcreek Inn last year with a winery owner and several wine enthusiasts and everyone thought the bottle was rockin’ good.