Sean Thackrey "Sirius" 2006 Petite Sirah, Mendocino County

Sean Thackrey is a winemaker based out of Marin County who's small lot, ultra-boutique bottlings earn rave reviews in the wine press and a cult-like status among afficionados. I was lucky enough to get a hold of a couple bottles of this Petite Sirah made from fruit from the Eaglepoint Ranch in Mendocino County, north of Ukiah.

This Petite is an inky purple color, to the rim. The nose offers a profound and potent mixture of brooding dark fruit complexed by pine sap, creosote, camphor, incense smoke, and eucalyptus. The attack is smooth, but the wine opens up on the palate with a walloping dose of black plum, cherry, and blackberry liquer, heavily accented with exotic spices, incensce, pine, eucalyptus, and licorice. These flavors alternate in waves, and develop monumental depth, concentration, and intensity as the wine warms in the glass. There is plenty of Petite's signature tannic grip, plenty of glycerin, and solid acidity, but this is all concealed beneath voluptuous fruit and the wild sappy and spicy accents. The finish goes on and on, full of mouth-staining fruit braced by ripe tannins, with a hint of oak blending with all the other layers of flavor going on.

This wine is a real showboat of a Petite Sirah, bringing all the potential of the varietal to the table. Intoxicatingly intense brooding dark fruit, with an exotic array of smoke and spice flavors and that pervasive, sappy eucalyptus-pine presence. This wine has the structue and stuffing to go for years, maybe decades. $40 here is actually a deal for such a singular expression of Petite. We had to experience this one as a stand-alone, and now that we did, I am hard put to think of a food-pairing that can stand up to this wine's power without stepping on it's complexity and sophistication. Not for the faint-hearted, but for die-hard Pet fans, this one is not to be missed, if it can be found.