Each year, as I organize the Petite Sirah Symposium, Christian Miller is more than happy to help me out with statistics on Petite Sirah. I give him what I’ve been collecting, and he comes up with all sorts of marketing numbers, by conducting a study from the PSILY members and those attending the Symposium. Christian is not only a very hard working man, but he is also fascinated – as I am – with the discoveries each year for Petite Sirah’s continued Tortoise and Hare growth patterns.

He is a professional marketer and researcher with over 25 years work experience, mainly in marketing and market analysis, and primarily in the wine industry. His experience includes work with both small and large companies, as a negociant, brand manager, in retail and restaurant sales, in operations analysis and market research. He holds a BA in Economics from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MBA from Cornell University.

Christian started Full Glass Research for the purpose of offering clear answers and applicable solutions to people with questions or problems of marketing, sales, product planning or industry strategy.

I fell upon him when I needed a researcher for the PS Symposium. PS I Love You has no greater research advocate than Christian Miller.

If anyone in the wine business has any questions about Petite Sirah, as regards its growth over the years, Christian is going to be where you need to go. He has the data to back up his theories.

By working with him on Petite Sirah, I’ve been able to watch his work ethic; and, it’s very strong. I can only imagine that his same passion and dedication segue to all other projects he takes on. PS can’t possibly be an isolated project. If anyone needs a wine industry researcher, Full Glass Research can be reached at 510-847-5160. He’s my research go-to guy.

Let me give you a bird’s eye view of some of the things that both Christian Miller and I came up with for the last Petite Sirah Symposium, in August of 2009. [BTW: This year’s PS Symposium is going to be held at Concannon, once again, on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.]

The chart above is one that I keep, by collecting data annually. Patrick Fegan of the Chicago Wine School is PSILY’s annual resource for these stats above. I suspect that any day now, as the the USDA numbers are out, Patrick will send updated info to me. His information is world inclusive, not just CA. The acres above are California acres. Notice the slow and steady growth since 1996.

Now, onto Christian Miller’s information. It is just amazing to me that as all other primary red varieties are on the decline in acreage, PS is continuing to be on the rise. PS has NOT has a stationary or negative growth year.

Notice the peaks of each variety, and Petite plays out the tortoise in most instances… but isn’t going backward.

“What is going on,” begs to be asked. All I know is that I’ve been advocating since 2002, and have made some great PS friends/producers along the way. These remarkable people have been willing to share some of their resources to help the efforts… Forging forward as the forward thinkers… the early adopters of the concept that Petite Sirah makes for a fabulous tasting experience.

Another interesting piece of information is where PS is being grown. the following chart shows within California what regions are growing it, and proportionally by how much.

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