Petite Sirah: The other red wine

La Mesa is getting noticed by readers of the Napa Valley Register. 

Professional wine writer Bob Ecker, who served on the panel of judges for the 2025 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, mentioned  La Mesa in his recent article "Petite Sirah: The other red wine." La Mesa was awarded a Double Gold in that competition category.

Mr. Ecker had this to say about La Mesa's Petite Sirah: "A rich, aromatic wine with ample amounts of ripe berries. Although it states 15% alcohol, the wine is mature and easy going. Gorgeously subtle notes of dark cherries permeate the wine. This wine will age quite well."

Côme Laguë, owner-winemaker at La Mesa, takes the positive feedback in stride. "Our Petite Sirah is the culmination of 12 years of hard work and patience. Petite Sirah is one of my favorite wines, making an intensely fruity, full bodied, dark ink-like wine with long aging potential, derived from the tiniest of berries."

I planted it here at our estate because I wanted a particular clone I had trouble finding, FPS03, and complete control over growing it, as it can be a tricky one to get to the finish. We planted ours in a new hillside vineyard in 2013, taking five years to reach full production, with our first estate release in 2019. Ours is a quintessential Sierra Foothills Petite Sirah, with rich, powerful flavor and intense dark color." 

Côme explains some of the particular challenges with growing Petite. "Because the grape clusters are so compact, you have to really be on top of canopy management and fruit spacing or risk problems such as mildew. Air flow is key and the higher elevation here at La Mesa (2000ft) grown in our granitic, red volcanic soil has it thriving.  These special grapes we grow are sought out, season after season, by prominent wineries near and far. A small amount of it is set aside for blending into our other wines, where it can make a huge difference in flavor and structure. Think Cabernet, Primitivo, Grenache, GSM blends."

The SFCWC Double Gold award in the Petite Sirah category adds to two more earned by La Mesa at the 2024 Foothill Wine Competition.  "Last year, we started entering our wines in the big competitions for the very first time,” said “All the early work we did to research clones, innovations in winemaking techniques, and using our Flextank technology are paying off.”

Full article: 
https://napavalleyregister.com/wine/petite-sirah-the-other-red-wine/article_717666a2-fe10-11ef-b561-ef4f3447cd11.html