AUTHOR: Dave McIntyre TITLE: California Port: Go, and Zin No More! DATE: 3/04/2006 01:27:00 PM ----- BODY:

Over the years of my research, I’ve enjoyed many late-harvest Zinfandels or Zinfandel “ports,” syrupy, thick, sweet wines from California that make a nice end to a meal or suitable mate to a chocolate dessert, even if they didn’t exactly remind me of their more famous counterparts from the Douro. Faux Ports seem to be the domain of the Aussies. Recently, however, I tasted a California “port” that blew me away. It was Blue Cellars 2003 Petite Sirah Port, made by Jeff Ritchey, a low-key, high-talent winemaker you’ll probably read more of in years to come. Until last year, Ritchey was winemaker at Clos la Chance, a Central Coast operation that began by making wines from small private vineyard plots – essentially backyard vineyards. Now Ritchey is making wines under two labels with different financial partners, Blue Cellars and Sensorium. The Petite Sirah port offers bright fruit flavors of plums and blueberries, vibrant color and a long finish. There’s plenty of acidity to balance the sweetness. But what makes Petite Sirah a better choice than Zin for such a wine? “Petite Sirah has several advantages over Zinfandel in making a port-styled wine,” Ritchey explains. “First, it has bigger and smoother tannins and that a shows through all the sugar and alcohol in a port. The second is that the color is amazing. Zin doesn’t seem to hold it’s color in port conditions. Third, Zin tends to raisin and that shows in the finished product and fourth, PS has an amazing blueberry syrup character to it that lends itself really well to port. “ Ritchey’s other wines are also worth searching out: There’s a Blue Cellars Syrah 2003 from Truchard Vineyard, and two elegant offerings under the Sensorium label, a 2003 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2003 Central Coast Syrah.

----- --------