2016 Pinot Noir Summa Vineyard

The 2016 Pinot Noir Summa Vineyard is from vines planted in 1998 and also saw 50% new oak. Black rhubarb, red plums, spice, and orange blossom notes give way to a more rounded, textured, medium to full-bodied Pinot Noir that doesn’t have the tension or purity of the old vines cuvées, yet is beautifully balanced and seamless. Drink it anytime over the coming 10-15 years. Rivers Marie is the joint project between the husband wife team of Thomas Rivers Brown (of Schrader) and Genevieve Marie Welsh. The label was created in 2002 and includes wines from both Napa and Sonoma. Their Sonoma focus (which is the focus on this report) is on cool climate sites, and the Summa Vineyard, which was purchased by Brown and Welsh in 2010 located far out in the Occidental Ridge region of the Sonoma Coast, can be thought of as the heart of the estate. I tasted four Chardonnays for this report and six different Pinot Noir, all having singular and distinctive characters, which isn’t a given. These are elegant, Burgundian-styled wines that will benefit from short term cellaring, and I suspect be very long lived.