The '69 Freemark Abbey PS is hands down one of the best CA wine I’ve had.
If you see it, buy it.
74 also leaves a nice mark.
Tom, David, thanks for your notes on the older Ridge wines.
The early Petite Sirah from Burgess Cellars were exceptionally complex and great fun to drink. The Gang and I enjoyed the 74, 75 and 76 with Tom and his winemaker the Thursday before Ridgestock back in '02. You can enjoy geo’s notes on the visit here: Gang of Pour - geo t.'s Tasting Notes - Burgess (I believe the last vintage was 1977 - the vines were ripped after harvest and replanted to Cab)
I highly recommend the Petite Sirah from David Fulton Winery in St. Helena - they still aspire to that old school structure and flavor, but like many producers, may wind up sacraficing some longevity for early drinkability.
And Mr. Alfert - no disrespect intended, but with all that Ridge in your cellar, you should know better than to open a newly released Lytton Springs Anything, let alone a Petite Sirah.
As a certain large canine friend of ours has been known to say: “People who collect Petite Sirah are dweebs with too much cellar space.”
Uh…guilty.
Ha, not at all, the great hallmarks of Geyserville and Lytton Springs Zins are their ability to drink well young and old! The 2012 Geyserville is rockin! IMHO, of course.
95 Vincent Arroyo from barrel was an amazing experience. 01 Switchback was a black beauty and loaded with tannin.
95 Turley Hayne was big boned and loaded with potential. I would love to try this in 2020.
I have had 91 and 92 Ridge in the past couple of year with great showings.
I feel that PS can age and improve for some years however it seems to stall during the development stage and continues to hang on with its structure rather than developing many more aged nuances.
I’m not familiar with ‘roast’ the way some of you guys are using it here.
Is it a euphemism for hangtime/overripeness? A particular cellar technique? A synonym of spoof? Something else?
Just curious 
Think roasted fruits, fruits that have been heated.
Well…that’s a term that Mitch introduced to this thread. So I can’t speak for Mitch, but I think he just means let the grapes
hang until the get very ripe & produce a high-alcohol wine.
Tom
Correct. Though if you let Pet get very ripe and then do some parlor tricks to avoid flabbiness you are now beyond roasting and into spoofulation.
Usually by now in any thread on Pet, someone mentions Thackrey Orion (and for some reason not Sirius), both of which are Pet. Now that (Orion) is one huge outlier. Delicious, minty, cerebral, heady, massive but not heavy. Fun stuff. Why? How? Nobody other than Mr. Thackrey seems to know. `
Tom[/quote] Not exactly “lost” access, David. They actually gave up the access as their Lytton West PS came into production.
PaulDraper & FritzMaytag were US AID partners down in Chile after their Stanford days. When Fritz acquired YorkCreek vnyd, he started selling
grapes to Ridge (about 1971); mostly PS, but also Merlot/Cab/Zin as well. He did not raise the price on his grapes to Ridge much over the yrs
and Paul was getting them for a song. Like about a third the price they’d bring on the open market. So as the LS PS came on-line, Paul offered Fritz
the deal to give up the PS grapes, which Fritz accepted. Mostly, the grapes go to his Fritz Maytag label, I believe. Though I think he does sell
some of the PS to others…forget who.
The Ridge YorkCreek PS was/is a legendary wine, especially the '71. Maybe one of the greatest Calif wines I’ve ever had. I think their last YC PS
was the '07…but believe they still have one more, maybe two, yet to release. Then gone/gone.
They make two LS PS’s…a LyttonEstate (described above), which goes out to distributors, and the LyttonWest, which is an ATP release.
I’ve never found the Ridge LS PS’s up to the level of their YC versions. I think they’re still dialing in on what those grapes can give. They all seemed
a bit on the coarse/clunky side of PS…maybe w/ age they’ll turn into something great.
PS is a funny grape in Calif. Followed it from the very start…I did/I did. It can oftentimes make a rather coarse/crude/clunky kind of wine, usually w/
lots of tannins, and lacking much in the way of fruit. But almost always very dark in color unless aged to senility in large vats as the do at Foppiano
or Parducci or Concannon.
But sometimes some winemakers can coax some high-toned fruit from the variety. I think the Jaffurs ThompsonVnyd PS is the greatest one made in Calif.
The Turleys are also very/very good. Other good ones are JCCellars/VincentArroyo/JacobFranklin.
Tom[/quote]
Tom or anyone – Slightly off topic but – I was just look at York Creek Vineyards site, doesn’t look to be updated with any recent vintages of wine. Along with selling Anchor did he also jettison making wine?
Love me some PS! Here are notes from 2 tastings:
http://www.finewinegeek.com/tn/2008-10-02_WCC_PetiteSirah_Filet7West/
Tom
Not sure, Nick. But I haven’t heard anything about him dumping the vnyd or no longer making wine. I think Fritz had segued into distilling spirits as well. I only had a couple of his wines
and thought them pretty good. But not easy to find.
Tom
To the best of my knowledge, The York Creek winery facility was on the brewery site, and when Anchor sold the facility went with it. The grapes are still being grown on Spring Mountain, but there are no new wines being made under the label, and the winery has been selling off its library over the past couple of years, which has provided some fun opportunities to get mature Spring Mountain Cabernet (and other varieties) for a song.
Yeah, I haven’t heard of any changes with York Creek Vineyards, either. They’ve just always seemed like one of those wineries who have a stable customer base and stable accounts, so not much need to do marketing beyond maintaining the status quo. (Some of my local-ish SF Peninsula wine shops have long carried their wines.)
Roast-y character related to long hang time makes sense. Especially in sub-optimal sites. Both losing the high-end volatile aromatics, plus maybe a little sunburn.
Odonata Wines makes a good one that really holds onto the aromatics well. Not sure what he does, but he also manages the incredible feat of making an enjoyable Malbec. The PS fruit is from the Morgan Hill area of the Santa Clara Valley. I’ve had other softer, more open versions from that general area.
I hate to be pedantic, but it hasn’t developed, it hasn’t aged. It has lasted. I see too many notes around here confusing the two.
That said, the 1989 Ridge PS I had aged.