Grosse Lage

A term used by members of the VDP in Germany to indicate a vineyard that is of the highest quality. The term roughly corresponds to the Burgundian term Grand Cru. The term Grosse Lage will appear on the neck label. See VDP.

Petite sirah is so named because it has less tannin than syrah.

Answer: False.

Petite sirah, also known as durif, has an enormous amount of tannin. The variety is a cross between two French grapes—syrah and peloursin. Petite Sirah was crossed in the 1860s, by a scientist named Durif and is sometimes spelled petite syrah. Petite sirah grapes are generally smaller than syrah grapes (hence the “petite” in the name). As with all small grapes, petite sirah has a high ratio of skin to juice. Since tannin comes primarily from a grape’s skin, small grapes like petite sirah often have a considerable amount of tannin. In the end, there is nothing petite about petite sirah. A similar example is petit verdot (petit in this case is spelled without the “e” since the word verdot is masculine). There’s nothing petit about petit verdot either.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that umlauts scare away American wine lovers. For whatever reason, bottles with labels bearing those diacritical points, floating above terms like spätlese or grapes called spätburgunder or müller-thurgau or places named Würzburg or Württemberg, are a turnoff for so many English-speaking consumers. Let it be said, then, that I am somewhat out of step with my fellow Americans. Though I speak almost no German, I love wines with umlauts. And I go to significant lengths to seek them out.”

–Jason Wilson, How German Wine Found Its Sweet Spot, The Washington Post, September 5, 2019

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