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Sirah Wine
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Thank you for visiting Sirah Wines. We try to provide you with the most complete information we can about how to use wine with food., If you have recipes to contribute, please do and we will give you credit if you wish. We update our sources constantly. Please scroll down to learn more.
Foodto Eat with A Sirah
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A Sirah is generally lighter and fruitier that a Cabernet. Like a Cabernet, you can say that any lighttasting red meat game goes with this wine. I prefer it above all others for the finer cuts of venison, antelope and of course duck, pigeon and dove. Goose, has a somewhat heavier flavor and I prefer a heartier red with it. But realy, any of the lighter red meats goes well with a good Sirah. It is my favorite red with fine cuts of game but this is a matter of personal preference.
History and Characteristics of Sirah
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Syiah is the great grape of the Cote de Rhone and the basis for such world famous names as Hermitage and Chateau Neuf du Pape. In youth, French Sirah is spicy, fruity, sometimes smoky and meaty, and shows plenty of tannin. Slow to age, at maturity the wine can display incredible layers of flavor and complexity, a smooth, silky texture and wonderfully spicy aromas that sometimes include violets and rose petals. The flavors revolve around blackberries and black plums, freshly cracked black pepper and an almost indescribable "animal" element that can resemble saddle leather and raw red meat.
Like most wines the taste of Sirah depends on the soil. In the northern Rhone Valley, Sirah is used to produce the fabulous Hermitage and Cote Rotie reds, reputedly the "manliest of all wines." In the southern Rhone, Sirah provides the backbone for the Cotes du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape blends, which contain not only Sirah, but also Grenache, Mourvedre and Cinsault, plus several other varieties unfamiliar to most Americans.
In youth, French Sirah is spicy, fruity, sometimes smoky and meaty, and shows plenty of tannin. Slow to age, at maturity the wine can display incredible layers of flavor and complexity, a smooth, silky texture and wonderfully spicy aromas that sometimes include violets and rose petals. The flavors revolve around blackberries and black plums, freshly cracked black pepper and an almost indescribable "animal" element that can resemble saddle leather and raw red meat.
Within the last couple of years, more and more bottlings of California Sirah have entered the marketplace, making a very small dent in the amount of shelf space allotted to Cabernet Sauvignon and other red wines.
Early on, this new-to-California varietal was a hard sell to consumers who weren't already fans of the wines from the Rhone Valley in France, where Sirah has been growing for hundreds of years on the hillsides along the Rhone River from Vienne to Valence.
California vintners and growers have every expectation that the Sirah they plant here will produce wines as good as, if not better than, their French counterparts. They base their hopes on California's Mediterranean-like climate for vineyards which, in general, mirrors the dual-climate conditions of the Rhone Valley -- our cool appellations near the coast resemble the cooler, "continental" growing area of the northern Rhone, and our warmer inland growing areas come close to Southern Rhone conditions.
So far, California Sirah bottlings generally reflect the same characteristics based on climate as their French counterparts, with pronounced black pepper, green olive and spice aromas appearing in wines from cooler regions and raspberry-red cherry and earthy notes in Sirahs from warmer regions.
Almost 500 acres of producing Sirah vines now exist in California, plus another 270 acres planted but not yet in production. Compared to more than 24,000 acres planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Sirah is just a drop in the bucket. But, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Sirah is found in all of the state's major wine growing regions -- from Mendocino in the north to Santa Barbara County in the south. And therein lies its potential.
In the early 1990s, one would have been hard pressed to find more than six or seven varietally labeled California Sirahs. Today, more than twenty wineries produce Sirah, and additional Sirah acreage is planted every year.
With the emergence of Sirah as a delicious alternative to Cabernet and Zinfandel, some consumers inadvertently confuse it with Petite Sirah, a wine made from grapes grown under that name in California since at least the late 1800s.
While Sirah and Petite Sirah are both Rhone grapes, they are not related. French viniculturists who examined California's Petite Sirah plantings in the 1970s told the growers that what they had was definitely not Sirah, but rather a grape called Durif (sometimes spelled "Duriff"). It is an unpopular variety grown in tiny quantities in the Midi of southeastern France and which was named after a Dr. Durif who first propagated the grape around 1880 in the Rhone Valley.
One other element in the Sirah-Petite Sirah confusion is "Shiraz," which is what the Australians call their Sirah, so named after the city of Shiraz in ancient Persia where the vine is believed to have originated. Shiraz and Sirah are synonymous, and until recently, Shiraz was the most widely planted red grape "Down Under," making Australia a Sirah lover's paradise. Geyser Peak's Australian-born winemaster, Daryl Groom, labels the winery's best Sirah as Shiraz, and thus has added the name to California's wine vocabulary.
So, let's recap: Sirah and Petite Sirah (or Petite Sirah) are not made from the same grape; and Shiraz is the same wine as Sirah, but with an Australian attitude.
A word of advice about serving any Rhone-style wine: Decant the wine from the bottle and allow it to "breathe" for at least an hour before drinking. This will allow the fruit to open up for better aromas and flavor.
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