April 25, 2024 - Perfect fill level and cork. Nice healthy red in color, with no browning on the rim. Still primary and youthful at 30 years of age. Full of red fruit and pepper. Plump and juicy. Doesn't Petite Sirah ever age?
December 3, 2022 - This bottle was excellent. Bright and fruity but with a ton of interest and complexity. Started to tighten up or fade after a few hours, but until then it was excellent.
November 19, 2021 - Agree with the most recent note. This bottle has a $7.99 label on it when I bought it second-hand, presumably because it did indeed cost $7.99 in 1994. This was was good, but not a special bottle. Just a good old wine that tasted like it was a little past its peak.
April 16, 2021 - Not the transcendent experience others have noted, but I think that's because I probably didn't give this enough air. This was big burly PS, even at 26 years old, and put on heft as the evening went on. Lots of fruit, earth, some floral and herbal aromas to round it out. Very very nice. Kept on getting tighter with tannin over the few hours it was open.
May 10, 2020 - Stunning bottle. WOTY candidate. Fresh Black fruit and leather on the nose with some earth backing it up. On the palate, fresh blackberry, olallieberry, and blueberry, leather, dirt, and layers of fine tannins. Acidity comes to the foreground on the mid-palate and dances with the tannins on the very long finish. This one is just turning secondary. One might guess ten years, but this wine is silly fresh for 26 years and still showing plenty of everything, including fruit and tannins. It's fully balanced and full of layers. Oustanding Petit Sirah. Best of the four bottles from the Ravenswood library. All have been very good to excellent—this one stellar, reminiscent of a great aged Bordeaux.
April 9, 2020 - Quite good for a 26 yr old wine. Not as dark as I would expect, still some tannin left but not strong. Had a little funk on the nose. More earthy tones than fruit tones. I would have easily mistaken this for a syrah. Overall pleasant and I would not have expected it to be 26 yrs old.
February 7, 2020 - Still primary, as Petite Sirah tends to be. Black fruits, pepper, medium tannins. Still holding on to a nice punch of fleshy fruit. At a nice drinking window.
December 31, 2019 - Just got this from recently released library wines.
This one stands out from the older zina and merlot.
Still amazingly fresh and drinking beautifully
May 15, 2004 - BLACKBERRIES AND BLACKCHERRIES IN THE NOSE. FLAVOR LIKE THE NOSE WITH A TOUCH OF LICORICE AND SPICE. MEDIUM LENGTH FINISH.