Mission Hill Syrah

After having thoroughly enjoyed the 2001 Jackson-Triggs Syrah just the other week (#535), we figured "Why stop there?" I saw that we still had tonight's bottle in our "cellar" and, seeing as how Mission Hill is one of the few wineries that could challenge J-T for provincial (national?) dominance back at the turn of this century, I thought that it might be a good idea to give one of their first attempts at the varietal a try.

542. 2000 Mission Hill Family Estate Syrah (VQA Okanagan Valley)

For a first attempt, the winery must have been proud as a peacock when the wine won a Gold Medal at the 2002 Canadian Wine Awards. There wouldn't have been that many examples of Syrah available yet, but that would have made it very easy for the judges to not issue any gold medals in the Syrah/Shiraz category.

We were glad to see that the bottle was still drinking fine. I'm sure it had more fruit on the palate a few years ago, but it still offered up a decent balance. For a gold medallist, I might have expected a bit more structure and tannin, but, then again, these would have been young vines and I don't think anyone was expecting BC bottles to be cellared for almost a decade.

I'll be interested to see what the current vintages are like. I don't think we have many other Mission Hill Syrah's to pull out at the moment.