Tasting Note – I tasted this zesty syrah at Niagara’s first syrah-based tasting in July, called Shades of Syrah. Creekside, a syrah specialist, was pouring four examples, and offered this new label first. It shows syrahs deeper colour – in this case purple-ruby and it was absolutely luminous. Everything else shouted that this was a light red at heart. The nose is very pretty, bristling with sour cherry fruit, a bouquet of florals, pepper and spice. It is light to medium bodied (13% abv), tart-edged and juicy with very fine tannin. The length is very good to excellent, keeping the quality score a bit suppressed. But it has wow-factor.  It was designed to be chilled and quaffed.

Backgrounder: Y & R are the initials of Yvonne Irvine and Rob Power, who share winemaking duties at this syrah-centric winery in Creek Shores. Creekside first made syrah commercially in 2004, one of the earliest in Niagara, along with Kacaba. Their heavy weight Unbroken Press 2020 has been reviewed at Canada’s Best Wines. Rob Power calls the 2022 vintage ‘small but mighty’. Thanks to some winter kill “there was less crop across the region but what was harvested was high quality with lots of intensity. The grapes for this wine came from vineyards throughout Niagara that were closer to the lake, thus less affected.  It was made in a style “that is a bit lighter on tannins, with lots of fresh fruit and spice notes”