Hair of the Bear 2023

Stolpman’s Polished Petite Sirah
We’ve bottled wine from the 3.5 acre 1992 planting of Petite Sirah on only a few occasions. Especially in the extremes of Ballard Canyon, winemakers must wait for the Petite Sirah skins to soften in order to avoid burly, coarse tannins. This often means picking at extremely high sugars and bottling wines with hotter alcohol levels than we prefer.
In 2016, winemaker Kyle Knapp had the brilliant idea of co-fermenting the powerful, black varietal with soft, rich, and cushioning Roussanne. Roussanne ripens extremely late here on the vineyard, so it naturally brings the sugar content down – translating to 1.5% less alcohol than if we left the Petite Sirah monocepage.  During fermentation, the golden Roussanne polishes the raw power of the Petite Sirah into an elegant, fine wine.
In recognition of the winemaker’s triumphant experiment, artist Eric Beltz drew a rugged, older, perhaps more dapper version of Kyle Knapp emerging from the wilderness with a domesticated bear by his side.  A parallel to Roussanne taming the wild Petite Sirah.
The term “Hair of the Bear” described a top-notch frontiersman or trapper back in the days of the Wild West and California Gold Rush. 
Healthy late winter and early spring rainfall delayed bud break by a few weeks.   Summer weather remained moderate and luckily, we experienced a warmer than usual October that pushed the vines through the finish line of peak ripeness.   Hair of the Bear’s November 8th harvest date ended up being the second latest in the cuvee’s history as we harvested on November 12, 2018.    
Opaque black, both in color and in profile on the nose. Behind the dark oozing coat comes a happy wink of tropical fruit in a dense, dark rainforest.  Smooth and rich into the mid palate, the monster begins to lighten up into balance by the mid-rear, like a mastiff with most of his weight in its giant head and massive chest.  In contrast, the hind quarters seem quite nimble.   At the end, the fine tannin is already completely integrated into smoothness.  For the Hair of the Bear fans, this rich, supple mama is going to wow you.