What is it anyway, a small Shiraz?
The people who study these things seem to agree that there is some connection between the Syrah/Shiraz grape (French/Australian spellings) and the Petite Sirah grape, but exactly how much is debatable. DNA testing suggests that it has evolved from seveal different grapes into the one that we know today. Syrah is an important grape in the genesis of Petite Sirah, but not the only one. Concannon? Who are they? Concannon Vineyards has been making wine for more than 120 years in California’s Livermore Valley, not so far to the southeast of Napa Valley. Petite Sirah has always been an important grape for the winery. For their first half century or so it was used as an important part of their Rhone style blended reds. In the early 1960s they started releasing small batches of Petite Sirahs and these releases have increased in size since then. The company kind of floundered in the mid nineties under big mega-corporate ownership, but it was bought a few years ago by some other CA winemakers an
