Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah is a wonderfully serious expression of a grape that is sometimes treated simply as a source of colour and power. Here it gets the full single-vineyard treatment: 100% organically grown Petite Sirah from Ridge’s historic Lytton Springs estate in Dry Creek Valley, including vines that date back to 1901. The wine is almost opaque in colour, with blackberry, blackcurrant, plum and blueberry layered with violet, black pepper, liquorice, mint, graphite and savoury notes of earth and charcuterie. It is undeniably full-bodied and tannic, but Ridge deliberately handles Petite Sirah with restraint, using whole-berry fermentation, native yeasts, limited pump-overs and careful extraction to preserve freshness alongside all that natural concentration. Sixteen months in air-dried American oak brings vanilla and baking spice, yet only 20% of the barrels are new, preventing the oak from dominating the fruit. The result is muscular without being heavy-handed: a dense, age-worthy Californian red with impressive acidity running through its dark fruit and formidable tannins. Ridge itself expects the wine to continue developing for at least a decade, while critical drinking windows extend into the late 2030s.

Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, Producer

Ridge Vineyards is one of California’s most important historic producers, with its modern story beginning in 1962 when a group of Stanford Research Institute engineers produced the first modern Ridge Monte Bello. Zinfandel followed in 1964, and Paul Draper joined the partnership in 1969, eventually shaping a winemaking philosophy that Ridge still calls “pre-industrial”. Rather than relying heavily on cultured yeasts, enzymes, flavour adjustments or aggressive processing, Ridge focuses on distinctive vineyards, native fermentations and relatively simple traditional cellar techniques. The estate has also been unusually transparent about its methods: since the 2011 vintage, Ridge has voluntarily listed ingredients on its labels. Today John Olney serves as CEO and head winemaker, continuing the single-vineyard and minimal-intervention philosophy established over the previous six decades.

Lytton Springs entered the Ridge story in 1972, when Draper first purchased fruit from the old vineyard. Ridge acquired the eastern part of the property in 1991 and subsequently the western section, creating the present Lytton estate. Although the site is best known for its old-vine Zinfandel-based field blend, Petite Sirah has always been important here. Ridge discovered that the clay-rich western blocks were particularly well suited to the variety, producing exceptional colour, tannin and natural acidity. The first dedicated 100% Lytton Estate Petite Sirah bottling appeared in 2002; prior to that, the fruit had largely disappeared into Lytton Springs blends.

Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, Terroir & Winemaking

The Petite Sirah comes from the Lytton Springs estate at the south-eastern edge of Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County, particularly the western portion known as Lytton West. The estate sits across slopes, benchland and lower-lying sites with a complex range of soils including Arbuckle, Clough and Pleasanton gravelly loams and Sites loam. Petite Sirah performs especially well on the hillier, clay-rich portions of Lytton West, where the heavier soils encourage smaller, more compact vines and help the grape develop the intense colour and tannin for which it is famous. The wider Dry Creek climate combines warm, sunny afternoons with cooling evening breezes and coastal influence, allowing full flavour development while retaining acidity. The oldest Petite Sirah vines at the estate were planted in 1901, with the youngest planted in 2008.

Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, 2022 Vintage

The 2022 season was the third consecutive drought year, although spring rainfall provided some relief. Mild summer conditions allowed relatively even ripening before two heat spells accelerated the final stages of the season, and the Petite Sirah was harvested between 7 and 12 September at an average 23.3° Brix. Five vineyard blocks were selected for their depth of colour, texture and complexity. The grapes were hand harvested and destemmed before whole-berry fermentation using native yeasts, with pump-overs limited to once daily to avoid extracting excessive tannin. Natural malolactic fermentation followed. The wine then spent 16 months in 100% air-dried American oak: 20% new barrels, with the remaining 80% spread across one-, three-, four- and five-year-old wood. Ridge used minimal sulphur and pad-filtered the wine before bottling in April 2024.

Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah 2022, Tasting Notes

Almost opaque purple-black in the glass. The nose begins with briary blackberry, blackcurrant, plum and blueberry, gradually revealing violet, dark rose, liquorice, black pepper and mint. There are darker savoury notes underneath – graphite, iron, black olive, roasted meat and a hint of tar – together with vanilla and brown baking spice from the American oak. Ridge’s own tasting note highlights blackberry, pepper, vanilla, mint and floral character, while recent critics have also picked up violets, pencil lead, tobacco, black raspberry and earthy spice.

The palate is full-bodied, dense and impressively concentrated, with black and blue fruit surrounded by substantial but well-coated tannins. Petite Sirah can easily become massive and rather static, but there is excellent acidity here, giving the wine lift and keeping the fruit fresh. Blackberry and black plum are joined by pepper, liquorice, dark chocolate, herbs and a distinctly mineral, iron-like savouriness. The tannins remain youthful and grippy, particularly on the finish, but the fruit has enough depth to match them. Drinking now with a long decant gives a powerful, exuberant experience; a few years in bottle should allow the texture to become markedly more supple.

Ridge Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, Food pairing suggestion: Slow-Braised Beef with Red Wine, Rosemary and Creamy Parmesan Polenta.