Petit Verdot

On April 20, 2024, we had our vertical petit verdot tasting with food pairings. Petit verdot is one of those grapes growing in popularity in Maryland. It used to be that I would get super excited if I saw it on a tasting menu at a winery because of how rare it was. This "little green" grape is very small, thin-skinned, late harvested and really just hard to grow. It has historically been a blending grape and you may have seen it on  your Bordeaux labels since it is one of the five grapes allowed to be blended in those French red blends. When you can make a good single varietal of it, you'll notice right off the bat its dark, inky color. Petit verdot is full of dark fruit and spice and can even be floral on the nose. It can also be very tannic so aging and/or decanting is necessary when trying to really enjoy a glass. This is one of my personal favorite grapes so I  couldn't be happier that so many Maryland wineries are now growing petit verdot and putting it on their tasting menus. The wines we have specifically for this tasting are  extra special because we have had them and have been aging them for a number of  years. We opened Red Heiffer's 2017, Big Cork's 2017, Horton's 2016 and Hiddencroft's 2015. Yes, two of these are Virginia wineries but we couldn't do this tasting without one of our absolute favorite winery's and petit verdot's in it - Hiddencroft. This is a winery right on the border of Maryland and Virginia, west, right near Harper's Ferry. Its close enough to Maryland that I consider it an honorary Maryland winery. All of their reds are great, especially their petit verdot. For the food, I slow cooked short ribs all day then tossed half the meat in BBQ sauce and half the meat in taco seasoning. We had slider buns, Fritos scoops and crisped mini corn tortillas to put the meat in, along with toppings of guacamole and slaw. There were also cheesey stuffed mushrooms and peppers and charceuterie of champagne cheddar, smoked gouda, peppers and carrots. Oh and some meat and veggie pizzas on naan and cut into wedges. We did a bottle review podcast on Red Heiffer so I won't go into too much detail in here but it was full of black fruits like blackberry, plum and currant. On the nose we got lavendar, thyme, mint, smoke and vanilla, plus some spices like licorice and white pepper. This paired especially well with the BBQ short ribs and cheesy mushrooms. The Big Cork PV was also floral with some violet on the nose, dark fruits of cherry and plum and had a lovely, velvety, lingering finish. This wine paired especially well with the veggie pizzas and the cheesy peppers. Horton  interestingly still has this 2016 PV available on their menu and is home to the oldest petit verdot vines in Virginia. This wine was full of blackberry, coffee and smoke. It also paired really well with the BBQ short ribs and meat pizza, plus the truffled peanuts I  forgot to mention above. Last was the Hiddencroft. Black fruits like cherry and blackberry but also great smoke and white pepper on the nose. This was also the highest alcohol at 14%. 2015 was a great year and this wine, being the oldest of the four was a real  tertiary flavor treat. The fruits were more dried and there were notes of mushroom and forest floor. This wine paired especially well with the cheesy mushrooms, veggie pizza and truffled  peanuts. I am certainly showing some bias here since this is one of my favorite grape varietals, these are some of our favorite wineries and we opened wines with 7+ years of age on them. In addition to supporting your local wineries, I hope you also takeaway the benefits here of aging your wines. If you get enough tannin, acidity and/or alcohol on a wine you love, throw it one the rack for a few years. Patience certainly pays off when it comes to wine.