I don't even work there (or anywhere AAMOF) and this sounds like I'm bragging. Ok, maybe I am.
Russian River Valley, Foppiano, Estate Bottled, Petite Sirah 2005
Yeah, they were (at least a few years ago) the "Discovery of PS". In the end, they do a really good job of it.
Marvelous soft, fruity, yet correct PS. Lovely! Some tannin later, pepper in the aftertaste, will get better but not a long-term vintage.
Bought at the winery in September 2008, 14.5% alcohol, $19.00
I'm basically a Californian, and particularly Sonoma County, wine-drinker. Therefore I'm not terribly discriminatory about vintages - some are a bit better, some are a bit not so good.
There are a very few ('98 comes to mind) that appear difficult for early drinking, yet reward patience. I wasn't up to buying Ridge to lay away back then; if I had, York Creek and Geyserville would likely be stars about now. I do still have a bottle of Joseph Swan Stellwagen Vineyard '98 Zin, awaiting either the proper moment or a whim.
Other vintages don't have the "stuffing". In a "good" year, just about all wienries will have tasty, drinkable wines. In a hard year, it takes a good winery. IMO, '05 was a year that was better for the writers than the wine. Foppiano is a good producer, and this bottle shows what can be done with a soft, fat vintage. It has barely enough tannin and so forth to support the ripe fruit, and it will be somewhat better for a few years, but it isn't a cellar wine. I like it a lot -- heck, I have 5 more bottles! But I don't think it will be a good idea to ignore this for 20 years. And Petite Sirah can easily go 20 years.
Tasting wine, with an eye to putting some in the stash for later, is quite an adventure. I'm generally tasting new releases, and I like wine (why else would I do this??), and I have to remember that not only am I deciding whether to buy wine for the next year or so, I'm deciding how I think wine that I'm tasting now might change for better or worse over time - sometimes quite a bit of time. Fairly often I've found that a wine that's gangly and awkward, all elbows and knees, is better later than a wine that's a sleek sophisticate in the tasting room.
The '98 vintage in Sonoma County was the first that drove my opinion. I'd been buying wine in stores for more than 20 years, and tasting for 5 years or so. Here was a vintage for which my first thought was, "GACK! Horrible! Tannins that drive oak right out of the picture! Where's the fruit?" Then, in a few of the good wineries, I found that there was a balance.
The '05 vintage sort of reinforces the idea on the other side. On release, I thought, "This is delightful! Smooth, fruity, and long, without being too ripe." Then at other wineries I found a hollow middle. I wish there were a better term, because "hollow middle" doesn't really describe the lack of stuffing that I feel. But "stuffing" is a totally non-descriptive description, too.
So there. You pay your money and make your choice, and 5 or 10 or 20 years later you can decide just how dumb you were.
John