If you haven’t had any wines from Michael David Winery before there’s still a good chance you’ve seen one on a shelf somewhere in your neighborhood. Their wines are widely available offerings that appeal to a lot of folks. Today I’ll look at the current release of Petite Sirah which is labeled under their Earthquake tier of wines.
The Michael David Winery 2009 Earthquake Petite Sirah was produced using fruit from the Lodi region. In addition to Petite Sirah this wine contains a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon. After fermentation this wine spent 19 months in French oak. This wine, which is available nationally, has a suggested retail price of $26.
The moment you pour this wine the beautiful deep purple hue is immediately apparent. More than other wines, Petite Sirah can have the color of Welch's grape juice, as this one does. Plum violet and leather aromas fill the nose of this Petite Sirah. Deep dark plum, blackberry, and black raspberry fruit characteristics are prominent throughout the deeply layered palate of this wine along with plum pudding spices. All of those fruit flavors and spices carry through the finish along with bits of chocolate and earth. This is a structured Petite that features tightly wound, firm tannins. If you’re going to drink this wine now I recommend decanting it for about 90 minutes and pairing it with bold, full flavored foods. If you’re patient you could also lay this wine down for 3-5 years to soften it up a bit.
The Michael David Wines are unabashedly big, bold efforts aimed at folks who want lots of up front fruit. However their wines also consistently feature depth of palate and an above average finish in their respective categories. These are qualities not often found in the wines they’re competing with shelf space for. For that reason if you like bold, brash wines the Michael David offerings should be on your shopping list.