Francis Coppola Reserve

Dry Creek Valley - Abbe Vineyard
Petite Sirah Dessert Wine

• A decadent red dessert wine bursting with flavors of baked blackberry pie and sugared plums.

Our Petite Sirah is grown in Abbe Vineyard, located in Dry Creek Valley. The owner of the vineyard there has a long history of farming sustainably and a crew of “lifers” who really know the vineyard’s intricacies and nuances. As a result, they consistently grow grapes with excellent finesse and extraction. 

To make our dessert wine, our Petite Sirah grapes were placed in special tanks after harvest. When about half of the natural sugar in the grapes had been converted to alcohol, clear grape spirit was added, causing the yeasts in the wine to die off. This effectively stopped fermentation, thereby creating a sweet dessert wine. The wine was then placed in small oak barrels for 24 months in order to develop a mellow tannin structure and heighten the flavor complexity.