2017 Le Vigne Winery Petite Sirah Paso Robles 750 ml

Estate-grown. Single-vineyard. “Top-Flight Winemaker.” Each of these can single-handedly add digits to a wine’s price. But Le Vigne’s 2017 Petite Sirah is a different story. It’s everything we love about Petite Sirah—powerful, expressive, complex, it's the type of value we’re always looking for, but rarely find.  

In fact, this generous Petite Sirah is impossible to get unless you find yourself sitting at the family-run Le Vigne or perusing their website. Grown on just under six acres of Le Vigne’s Domenico Estate Vineyard, this bottle flaunts a power and depth that will have fans of bold Napa Cabs and Zins going back for glass after glass, long after the ribeyes come off the grill. It’s full-throttle, wild-berry intensity, layered with sweet spice and a touch of tobacco, tempered by a throughline of acidity.

Le Vigne’s bottles have a winemaking pedigree that would be impressive in wines two and three times the price. Heralded by Robert Parker as a “Top-Flight Winemaker,” Terry Culton contributed to the ascendance of standout estates like Peachy Canyon, Adelaida Cellars, Calera, Willamette Valley Vineyards, and even crafted wines for NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens’ Paso Robles label.

When you equip a veteran like Terry with estate grapes from a stellar vintage, expect big results. About the region’s 2017 vintage, Vinous said “Paso Robles can’t stop winning.” And Le Vigne took full advantage, riding a temperate autumn to a late harvest, giving grapes the extended hang-time that imbued this bottle with impressive complexity and richness. 

Paso Robles, called one of the “most dynamic [regions] in California” by Wine Spectator, is a golden-hilled utopia for Petite Sirah. Long, hot summer days see the mercury drop drastically into cool nights, yielding grapes that are deliciously concentrated but still boast vibrant acidity, and Petite Sirah that’s equal parts contemplative reading companion and grillside sipper. 

Despite its long winemaking history and critical acclaim, Paso Robles has been in the limelight nowhere near as long as Napa and Sonoma, which is why you can still get amazing values on exemplary wines like this Petite Sirah. But the spotlight is getting brighter (five Paso Robles wines landed in Wine Spectator’s top 30 in 2017), and these deals are getting increasingly difficult to find. 

The sustainably farmed Domenico Vineyard contains the first vines planted by the Filippini family, which they put in the ground in 1982, two decades after purchasing the land from country music legend Buck Owens. Seated in the Estrella sub-AVA of Paso Robles, its loamy soils are rich with nutrients from the Salinas River basin, and the Pacific breeze helps moderate the summer’s hot days, maintaining the wine’s balance. Those grapes, aged 22 months in 13% new American oak, develop into a grand and sophisticated wine that we’ll be sipping all spring, and beyond.