2016 Two Angels Petite Sirah Red Hill Lake County 750 ml

 A Full-Throttle Challenge to Napa’s Boldest Reds

With its explosion of black fruits, intense aromatics, and sturdy tannins, we’d offer a mouth-filling powerhouse like the 2016 Two Angels Petite Sirah every week if we could—but rarities like this inky, California jewel don't come around often. We’re looking for wines like Two Angels, which deliver the full-throttle, wild-berry intensity of Petite Sirah, at less than half the price of Napa Cabs, Zins, and Petite Sirah standard-bearers like Turley, Ridge, and TOR. Trust us: a wine boasting this kind of swagger is one you’ll want to open bottle after bottle.

Inky purple-black with a lively pink shine on the rim, the Two Angels has blueberry and chocolate notes jumping out of the glass, sprinkled with eucalyptus and framed by firm tannins. For those who want to revel in serious California intensity at an incredible price, it’s a must-have that will have you going back for glass after glass as the ribeyes come off the grill. And at $20 per bottle, Two Angels is tailor-made for that early-and-often treatment.

Our theory is that a lot of red wine drinkers are in love with Petite Sirah and don’t know it: If you like your Zin with a deep, brooding bass note—that’s probably Petite Sirah. Like your blends inky and intense? Chances are they’ve got a hefty dose of Petite Sirah blended in. There’s a reason that even David Beckstoffer adds Petite Sirah to his $180 Kata Cabernet Sauvignon: Because no other grape brings that black-fruited rumble quite like Petite Sirah.

In Two Angels, winemaker Bob Pepi takes advantage of geography to craft this crushing under-$30 value red. Located just north of Napa County, in Lake County, the Petite Sirah that goes into Two Angels ripens under the same sunshine as its famous neighbor to the south. It grows in the same sought-after red volcanic soils. It enjoys the same cool nights—which are absolutely essential to developing the acidity to balance Petite Sirah’s generous payload of fruit, body, and tannin. The only difference is the grape prices, which come in at less than ⅓ of Napa.

That value has a knack for pulling growers and winemakers from California’s bigger-name wine regions to Lake County. Ask the Beckstoffers, Napa’s first family of grape-growing, who have claimed a piece or the Red Hills region of Lake County, exactly where Pepi—who also enjoyed massive success in Napa, placing wines in the Wine Spectator Top 100—sourced the grapes for Two Angels.

Super-intense, brooding, black as night—and under $30. This is the kind of Petite Sirah we’ve always got our eye out for, and very few hit the bullseye. When one does it like Two Angels, we’re fast to claim it. It’s our first of 2019, and it might be our only one. Don’t miss out on a case or two.