Whenever I’m with my pals and we’ve been drinking, partying and listening to loud rock ’n’ roll, it always comes up, ever since I was an acne-challenged teenager: Who is the greatest rock band of all time? Is it the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Pink Floyd? Each of these bands gets some votes, and then arguments ensue. Who is the greatest rock guitarist? Is it Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page? Who is the greatest singer? Is it Elvis, Mick Jagger, Robert Plant or Paul McCartney? Endless heated shouting matches among good friends at the end of the evening, after all the smoking and drinking is done.

As my last friend, Ken, was leaving for the evening, he asked what my favorite group is. “Why, deep purple is my fav – not the rock band, of course, but shiraz, syrah and petite syrah,” I responded. “Why don’t you come in and have some coffee, and I’ll show you a little wine.”

I poured a glass of Neyers syrah and a glass of Stags Leap cabernet. “Notice the deep purple color of the syrah,” I said. “It’s a lot more purple than this cabernet, which has a reddish hue.”

Syrah, shiraz and petite syrah came in vogue when Rosemont wines became popular in the U.S.A. The wine can be extremely grapey (it can taste like Welch’s grape juice at times), but it can also be huge like a cabernet, with hints of spice and black pepper.

The wine had a great deal of promise in California, but hasn’t really taken off. The problem is that people expect it to taste similar to an Australian shiraz, like Yellow Tail, but it lacks the intense, grapey flavor. In California, these wines are made to be smooth and light, and aren’t as sweet. The wine lacks the monster grape flavor.

The benchmark syrah is Hermitage. The legend of Hermitage concerns the 13th century knight Gaspard de Steimberg, who was sick of the slaughter of the crusades and decided to live as a hermit and make wine. He brought a vine of a red grape he called shriaz after its native city in Persia. After a few centuries, shriaz became known as syrah in France. Hermitage is a huge, intense, smoky, peppery, tannic wine that can be aged for decades.

Syrah’s main home is in the northern Rhone region of France, where, besides Hermitage, the grape is made into Crozes-Hermitage, Saint Joseph, Cotie Rotie and Cornas. All the wines are 100-percent syrah, with the exception of Cotie Rotie, which is sometimes blended with the white wine varietal viognier.

Deep purple is blended in the southern Rhone region with grenache and mourvèdre, which makes Châteauneuf-du-Pape and is one of the elements in côtes du Rhône.

There are no vitis vinifera (wine grapes) native to the new world; new-world winemakers brought vines and cuttings from Europe and the Middle East. California’s wine industry is modeled after the French wine industry – in particular, burgundy and bordeaux, with the use of chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, merlot and sauvignon blanc. The work of pioneers like Bonny Doon, the great winemaker Randall Graham and the Rhone Rangers have put syrah on the map.

In Australia, with its warmer climate, there is extensive planting of the three Rhone varietals grenache, syrah and mourvèdre, known as GSM wines in the wine trade.

Syrah has taken off in a number of different areas. In Italy, it is grown in Tuscany right next to the great chianti grape, sangiovese, and is blended with many great red Tuscan wines. In the warmer climates of southern Italy, particularly in Sicily, syrah is made with surprisingly good results.

Temecula isn’t yet, but should be syrah country. Cabernet and chardonnay is being grown in too warm of a climate; the wine is OK, but will never reach the quality of Mediterranean grape varietals such as syrah, grenache and sangiovese.

In California, wineries such as Stags Leap and Ridge make petite syrah, which was thought to be syrah but is really the obscure southern French varietal durif. It makes a huge, tannic, peppery wine with a spicy aroma.

The future of syrah is bright here on the West Coast, with both California and Washington producing some very interesting examples of the deep-purple wine.

Great domestic syrah includes: Neyers, Stags Leap, Morgan, Cafaro, Cline, Qupe, Bonny Doon, Jade Mountain and Boeger.

Great international syrah includes: Jaboulet, Guigal, Planeta, d’Arenberg, McWilliams and Penfolds.

Great petite syrah includes Ridge, Stags Leap and Lava Cap.