Miro Cellars Somners Vineyard Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah 2005

Somners Vineyard is a four acre vineyard well known for its superlative Petite Sirah and Zinfandel. The vineyard's unique combination of slope, exposure, and soil type are an ideal match for Petite Sirah. They provide sufficient heat to the vineyard during the day, followed by rapid night time cooling, and the results are aptly displayed in Miro's 2005 Somners Vineyard Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah. Inky purple, deep, and aromatic, this is Petite Sirah at its best. On the nose the wine displays a draught of intense berry fruit, coupled with spice, roasted coffee, and a dash of angostura. Full and rich, this Miro Petite Sirah engages the palate immediately, revealing opulent, burnished fruit, bark, spice, and layers of flavor. With aeration, additional flavors emerge: blackberry, graphite, and white pepper come to fore. For such a young wine, the 2005 Miro offers already a surprising amount of complexity along with its rich flavors and lush texture. However, this single vineyard Petite Sirah will almost certainly gather additional complexity and subtlety of flavor with another year or two in bottle. The question is this: Can you wait?

Hearty wines with some flesh and bone such as the 2005 Miro Somners Vineyard Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah (14.5% alcohol and a boatload of flavor) pair extremely well with all kinds of flavorful foods. Grilled rib eye steaks, served with garlic mashed potatoes: wood grilled double cut lamb chops, brushed with extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with fresh mint and rosemary; grilled spicy Italian sausage, peppers, and onions; and just about any other meat or vegetable suitable for the grill will match up nicely with this excellent Petite Sirah. Classic Italian favorites pair up beautifully as well. For starters, how about trying the 2005 Miro Petite Sirah with brick oven cooked pizzas and calzones? Chicken or veal Marsala won't suffer any in the presence of this wine, either. Moreover, complex Northern Italian specialties that make use of mushrooms, truffles, and complex sauces will offer an even greater complement to Miro Tcholakov's majestic Petite Sirah.

In recent years, it has become apparent from numerous tastings that many of California's most compelling wines – flavorful, natural tasting wines that are both interesting and just plain fun to drink – are being made by a coterie of small boutique wineries that are dedicated to quality and individuality. Whether these wines are from long-time growers of superlative fruit who have decided to take a turn at winemaking or from well-established winemakers and enologists who have simply had enough of commercial formulas, small lots of excellent wines abound in California. One of these exciting young boutique ventures is Miro Cellars. Miro Cellars is the handiwork of winemaker and owner Miro Tcholakov, the current winemaker at Sonoma's Trentadue Winery. At Trentadue and at his own cellar, Miro fashions award-winning wines. Miro's specialties are Petite Sirah and Zinfandel, as his most recent releases will attest. Miro Tcholakov's wines have been top picks in USA Today and The New York Times, and they have been lauded by every major wine publication. The only problem with Miro's wines is their availability; procuring them is no mean feat. In the case of Miro's 2005 Petite Sirah, only 650 cases were made. Nevertheless, we have managed to obtain just enough of the outstanding 2005 Miro Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah to offer you a bottle. Enjoy!