2021 Rivers-Marie Summa Old Vines Pinot Noir21RMSOV750

Nostalgia can be a paralyzing trait.  As much as we love some of the older vintages of this wine, the current run is just better.  I’m not exactly sure where to start that period but based on recent tastings, 2015 is a good jumping off point.  All farming practices at Summa are now done with the express purpose of improving the finished wine.  That wasn’t always the case when the vineyard was farmed to sell fruit or the transition phase during the early years of our ownership where the focus was on restoring the vineyard to full health.  As much as we pine for the earlier, simpler days (when both the SKU count and corresponding mailer were shorter), this site needed changes to achieve what we’ve seen the last few vintages.  The new practices include pruning individual vines based on last year’s brush weight, minimal tilling, zero herbicides and dry farming.  We feel these have contributed a completeness to the Summa Old Vines bottlings that was lacking in early years.  Those years needed bottle age to find balance.  These newer iterations feel fully realized even early on in barrel showcasing greater color density, deeper mid-palates and more generous, kaleidoscopic finishes.  We keep thinking we’ve seen the qualitative zenith in this bottling in each previous vintage but then along comes 2021.