PELOURSIN: Almost extinct French red-wine grape recently identified as one of the varieties whose DNA is known to be present in the Petite Sirah grape(s) of California and part of some subject controversy.
PETITE SIRAH: Widely grown grape variety in California that a recent DNA analysis report, (9/1997), has shown as likely to be derived from the Peloursin and Syrah parent cultivars found in the Rhone region.
It was long theorized this was the case, that Petite Sirah was the same as the lackluster French variety known as Durif, a cross of Peloursin, yet another unremarkable variety, with the true Syrah. A French nurseryman, Dr.
Durif, red wine grape that is considered by some a cross between Syrah and a variety called Peloursin, grown in the Rhône valley in the late 19th and up to the middle of the 20th century.
" 50(3): 236-42 1999) shows this variety is possibly a cross between a seedling of Peloursin and the Syrah varieties.
Durif was developed by a Dr Durif in South-East France about 1880 and possibly grown from a seed of the variety Peloursin with which it is often grown and from which it is not always distinguished nor separated.
Geographical distribution ...
DNA analysis has now shown - 8/1997 - there is in fact a probable relationship due to the chance seedling or selection, whose parentage derives from the Rhone region Peloursin and Syrah cultivars, discovered and named Durif in the 1880's.
DNA profiling in 1999 found Syrah to be the offspring of two obscure grapes from southeastern France, Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche. It should not be confused with Petite Sirah, a synonym for Durif, a cross of Syrah with Peloursin dating from 1880.
It is believed - although there are some doubts about this theory - Petite Sirah is the Durif grape, a crossing between Peloursin and Syrah grapes, invented in France in the 1880's by doctor Durif, now disappeared from French vineyards.
A study done at the University of California at Davis determined not only that 90 percent of the Petite Sirah found in California is indeed Durif, but also that Durif is a cross between Peloursin and Syrah.
 See also: Character, Variety, Petite Sirah, Quality, Durif
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