Fourth Wall - Syrah

Character

I want a Syrah that leans into rotundone, and this layers it up into triple pepper territory: cracked black, pink peppercorn, and shishito. Aromatic overload, tightly wrapped florals spilling into bright strawberry, raspberry and blueberry. Fresh and juicy, buttressed by soft tannins and pitch perfect alcohol. Oh, and pink grapefruit… telltale for local Syrah. 

Winery & Winemaking Team

Riverview Cellars Estate Winery; Alyssa Bator and Nick Salvatore.                       

Vineyard Origins

From the Muste Vineyard, on the edge of the Four Mile Creek appellation (a stone’s throw from Niagara River DVA’s border). Five year old vines planted on sand/clay loam. Harvested at an average of 21° Brix on October 9th, 2021.

Behind the Music

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” as Keats closes Ode on a Grecian Urn… this sums up Syrah to me. The purity of the grape, well-handled, is a kernel of perfection. It is a Siren’s Call to somms. This young site yielded a cameo in last season’s Merlot (5% of total blend), and the fundamentals were so strong that I’d hoped the subsequent year would suit for a standalone bottling. It’s jeune fruit that’s anything but jejune.

While 2020s are sturdy, robust, and capable of aging, 2021s are the opposite. They’re the vintage you drink while waiting for the 2020s (and possibly 2022s) to come around. To speak generally of the grape, Northern Rhône Syrah of named appellations often breezes in, effortlessly claiming power and perfume. In Niagara, we have the perfume, but power varies. Imagine Syrah in Burgundian apparel. In fact, if we consider that Pinot Noir is the great-grandparent of Syrah, the profile of these intense aromatics makes a lot more sense. (And this one does work as Pinot stand-in, to a degree.)

Four 225L French oak barrels, approximately each 5 years old, were selected to form this cuvée. Bottling the energy of wondrously bright fruit is the goal. There may be more structured and built-up Syrah from other vintages, but you’d be hard pressed to find something us utterly drinkable (lovable?) than this.

Bottled August 18th, 2022.