Not everyone launches 24 Years Educating About Petite Sirah Since October 2002. I did. With Petite Sirah, I’ve been able to do anything I’ve wanted to with it, because no one else cared when I did, and I love freedom. In 2002, I was asked by Louis M. Foppiano, Foppiano Vineyards, to create a symposium for him. To him it meant a few guys sitting around a table. To me it meant something much bigger, much bigger. In my home state of Maine, I took a Girl Scout Day camp with 40 attendees, and was told the next year that baby was mine. I said, no thanks.

June 10 is National Petite Sirah Day, and yesterday we wrote the story.

It Grew To Amazing Proportions

In my PR job with WBLM fm radio, I had already created community gardens on both sides of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. My inspiration was seeing a stone naming the bridge, with a list of Irish Saint Patrick’s classmates, who went to Vietnam together.

They were all wiped out, with one bomb…

And, you can’t imagine how much that hurt. I decided I wanted to see the area become more than it was. WBLM allowed me to go for it. I raised all the funds, worked through the Lewiston Auburn Chamber of Commerce and the two towns, finding local landscape architects. It happened.

Radio recording studio

WBLM Did Everyone Another Favor

Next, when WBLM moved to Portland, Maine, and I continued my PR position, I had a community issues talk program called, “The Public Ear.” My bleeding heart broke again. I interviewed Bart Wiegand, at the University of Southern Maine, in the English of the Second Language Program. He told me that immigrants and refugees only needed $500 for entry to his program. Once in, they could apply for grants and scholarships, but that $500 they needed was a very difficult road block. He told me of one immigrant who was a surgeon, working in a meat processing plant. I thought, what a waste of a human being’s talents, so I became a thorn in the side of my Rotary’s club. I finally broke them down just before I moved to California.

Scholarships build a better community

All of this is who I was when Louis Foppiano called

Petite Sirah was the best kept secret in California wine. Then we held a symposium, and learned something right away: it’s a winemaker’s wine, whether people loved it or hated it. In 2002, when the first Symposium was held at Foppiano Vineyards, there were only 62 growers and producers in California to invite. Eleven years later, we had over 1,000 vintners and growers involved. From 62 to 1,000 in eleven years. The grape had found its people.

That first meeting drew at least half of those invited, gathered not around a single table, because there were too many people. Thirty people would have been too large for Foppiano’s garden. It became an annual tradition, a continuous single-variety symposium that ran for eleven years. When we moved to Concannon Vineyard, wine professionals were invited to speak on Petite Sirah’s history, growing, winemaking, and marketing. By the time those eleven years were up, the variety had been figured out. The community had found its footing, and I decided to retire the event.

New Stage ~ Dark & Delicious

From there, I decided to take Petite Sirah directly to consumers. I created an event called Dark & Delicious. People ate it up, and not just because of the wine. I brought in caterers, because I had been to too many four-hour tasting events where nobody ate anything. Mine ran three hours, and people left with food in their stomachs. It turned a wine event into a food and wine event, and that made all the difference.

Dark & Delicious ran for thirteen years. I decided to end it when it became too much to handle and, more importantly, when it lost its educational soul. The wine had started taking a back seat to the spectacle. And then Covid arrived, which made the decision final.

Returning To Original Roots

My heart is in education. I was teaching at 19 and directing a school at 23. I’ve been teaching one thing or another all of my life, and in California, teaching and PR have been my true calling through winery gigs and Diaz Communications. Covid was hard on advocacy groups. Most members found it difficult to keep going, and our community dwindled down to its most passionate core. They, like me, know that education is still the name of the game, and that social media is now the most direct path to it.

So here we are, full circle. Today is June 10th, it’s National Petite Sirah Day, and I am thrilled to have shared these 24 years with everyone part of this journey. Next year will be our silver anniversary, and something substantial is in the works. Local Petite Sirah Passport tastings have been mentioned, and we will have a meeting this fall to get it all moving forward. Until then, Happy Petite Sirah Day.

© Jo Diaz, June 10, 2026, All rights reserved.

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Written by Jo Diaz, a partner of Diaz Communications, who is helping to make stars realize their dreams.
Edited by partner Jose Diaz.

To reprint, please contact Jo Diaz: jo@diaz-communications.com