Stags’ Leap Winery, Napa Valley (California) Petite Sirah 2018

 The different spelling of the name (where, and whether, the apostrophe shows up) and his love of Petite Sirah were what distinguished the late Carl Doumanis’ winery from Warren Winiarski’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar, although Winiarski also made Petite Sirah for a time.  Fortunately when Doumani sold the winery in 1997 to Treasury Wine Estates, the Australians kept making the Petite Sirah (and perhaps even doing a better job of it).  This release is very lively yet firmly structured, with flavors of blueberries and blackberry.  At the finish, it does a curtain call with a lifting lilt of fresh fruit before exiting stage center.