Pinot Noir

This may end up being a one-time bountiful bottling, but it feels good to return this to the makeup of the older Sonoma Coast wines.  There’s the core provided by Riddle Vineyard in Occidental but then there is also some Bearwallow, Silver Eagle, Occidental Ridge, Joy Road, Bodega Thieriot and Summa, essentially a little bit of everything.  This formula always produces a wine more representative of the geographical areas we focus on.  The best part though is the quality.  With this many components, there’s a completeness to the wine that makes it one of the more successful wines in the lineup, odd to say about an appellation wine, but this was obvious as soon as we put the blend together.  Dark crimson in color, there’s immediate appeal to the nose combining the classic Occidental/Freestone elements of pomegranate, cut hay, lavender and sweetgrass.  Everything here is high toned.  Fruit tannin in 2024 is relatively low due to the size of the crop, so this wine also drinks well now.  A little fruit sweetness balances the youthful acidity and with no new oak interfering with expression, this will go down as one of the most enjoyable Sonoma Coast Pinot Noirs we have ever made. 

The color of this wine is really a testament to the complete development of fruit in 2023.  I must admit though when I opened my first bottle back in November, the complexion struck me as something from a much warmer year.  One year removed from harvest, I wondered if I had misremembered what this vintage truly was?  A quick smell and all the goodness of 2023 returned, the bright red fruits, a bit of orange peel, savory mint and some pine perfume. In short, nothing that indicates a hotter year.  Like 2022, this is almost entirely Riddle Vineyard with a few barrels of block 3 from Bodega Thieriot (which is probably where the color comes from).  That is where the similarity ends.  The 2023 is acid and tannin first then the seamless coastal fruit kicks in.  I want to say this is a drinker but there’s so much going on I really can’t tell.  What it is and what we always hope it will be is an early insight into the area.  It’s full of gravelly earth, spring flowers, brooding dark fruits, licorice and spicy herbs. 

Give how tight all the single vineyards were this year, the Sonoma Coast comes exclusively from the Riddle Vineyard in the northeastern corner of Occidental. Even with a smaller harvest, we picked this site in our normal way, an early pick of the Mount Eden clone, two back to back days of clone 828 and then finishing with a last pick of Pommard clone. Each clone contributes something different to the final blend. The Mount Eden is probably the most complete lot at pressing featuring a seamless run of bright red fruits that weave through wood smoke and a minty, savory character. The 828 is all fruit even veering toward a more Russian River cola quality at times. Acidity here helps balance the generosity. The Pommard is the backbone of the blend and provides a majority of the wine’s structure. It’s much darker fruited and brooding with a firm tannic finish that comes up in the end. The resulting blend has a translucent red hue, very medium in color. The fruit profile stays high toned with cherry, raspberry and a crunchy cranberry note dominating the mid-palate. Sandalwood and white flowers add finishing notes. This version reminds me a little of the 2012 and 2018 editions of the Sonoma Coast, where fruit came first and structure came with time.

Given the abundance of 2021, we were able to make some hard qualitative cuts and still have plenty of wine to satisfy our single vineyard needs. Whereas the 2019 was exclusively Riddle Vineyard, the 2021 features pieces of Joy Road and Bearwallow and small slivers of Summa and Occidental Ridge. This returns it more to an insight into the Occidental coast as a whole though it does skew stylistically toward the northeastern corner of that area. As I’m tasting this, it feels like a wine that will need a few years to fully open which could be a difficult trait for an appellation wine. We’ve never made this wine to be a lesser wine than the vineyard designates though. Our approach in the vineyard and winery is the same for all the lots that comprise a vintage. I think because of this, all the vintages of this bottling taste a bit differently. The 2021 leads with a medium plus color and a flavor profile featuring pomegranates, ground herbs, plum and black cherry. Smoke, loamy earth and spring flowers add a savory note to balance the fruit. There are some chewy tannins on the finish which reminds me of the 2013 and 2016. As usual there is very little new oak on this wine so the structure here is more fruit tannin than barrel.

This is the first offering of our Sonoma Coast bottling exclusively from Riddle Vineyard. As we continue to grab more and more of this vineyard, the ability to craft a standalone wine has become pretty simple. We use a little bit of every clone from the site and position those components to complement each other. The Mount Eden is picked early to add elegance and aromatic finesse, the 828 fills the mid-palate with sweet red and black fruit and the Pommard provides the structure that frames the finish. The wine is tightly packed with a little nervous energy and some zippy acidity to add freshness. The fruit mix moves from black back to red as the high-toned notes kick in. The savory components come up in the finish with licorice and gravelly earth, all with a floral top note.

As Riddle Vineyard goes, so goes this wine. With maturity this site has taken on a lot more density at much lower brix levels. Not only do we feel that provides a more accurate snapshot of Sonoma Coast but it also reflects the general development of the region. It wasn’t that long ago that every wine felt like it featured new vines freshly cultivated and variable in quality due to the challenges the coast provides. Now we feel we are routinely dealing with 15, 20, and 30 year old vineyards, young by old world standards of course, but stable and mature in this area. Riddle is a perfect example of this maturation. The wine is more concentrated without being heavy or tiresome. The fruit profile is varied, running from red to purple to black with an intense perfume that in younger years had to be pulled out with bottle age. In this vintage, tannins are abundant but ripe and round helped by small additions of most of the single vineyards.

With such a strong vintage for quality and quantity, we were able to be incredibly selective in 2017. There is a piece of every single vineyard designate site in this wine. The base is still Riddle Vineyard, located in a warmer northeastern corner of Occidental, complemented here by young vines from Summa, some clone 667 from Occidental Ridge, clone 828 from Silver Eagle and one used barrel of Platt. This blend gives a great insight into what the vintage provided on the true Sonoma Coast. Riddle is naturally red fruited so this wine comes across as a little more accessible than the more brooding 2016 version. Plum, mineral laced red fruit and mint jump out first balanced by a mouthwatering acidity that comes in a little earlier than normal.

This is a bit darker than previous editions. I’d attribute this to a lower natural pH in the wine which allowed us to extract and stabilize more color. The vineyard blend here is changed as well with the addition of some Platt Vineyard fruit. 2016 being the first year we bought grapes from this esteemed site in Freestone, it may take us a couple years to best understand how to make it so we’ve added it here to preserve our one shot at a first impression. To this, we’ve added three clones from the Riddle Ranch off of Stoetz Lane in Occidental and some clone 828 from Silver Eagle, also in the town of Occidental. The broody character of Freestone marries well with the more fruit forward character of these two warmer Occidental sites. The dominant fruit here is pomegranate which provides both a concentrated and fresh fruit character. The freshness cuts some of the weight of the wine without making the wine come across as lean or angular. As usual, this appellation bottling provides a lot of good early drinking opportunity at a price that doesn’t elicit regret once the cork is pulled.

This is it for us at Bearwallow.  To focus and refine our efforts on the coast, we will now be focusing exclusively on the Occidental area.  It has been a great 10-year ride in Anderson Valley and we will always be appreciative of everything the team at Rhys provided us for that decade.  Also, never a bad idea to go out on a high note.  Bearwallow was the exception for us in 2024.  Yields were historically low, harvesting under 3 tons from our 1.6-acre block.  This led to a concentrated effort, as dense as anything we had ever seen.  The weather here also was very different from the west Sonoma Coast, more reminiscent of the cool conditions in 2023.  Cranberry, black tea, smoke and dried herbs dominate the palate. The usual savage quality of the site is present but somewhat diminished by the purity of fruit and a focused floral element.  The wine finishes very dry with a crunchy acidity and a wave of fruit tannin that suggests even greater complexity ahead.

This is the most complete Bearwallow to date.  I’ve always liked this wine young, but it always has a hole in it somewhere that needs time to fill in.  Maybe sometimes the tannin is bit aggressive, the savory elements common to the area suppress the fruit or the wine’s just too rich but not here.  Everything feels so much more balanced in the 2023.  Every element from all past vintages is there but not one trait dominates the blend.  Wild herbs, spearmint, lightly roasted meat, black tea and an earthy minerality shoot through the palate.  The color is a bit lighter than normal, but like a lot of great Pinots, it’s in no way indicative of the palate impact.  Alcohol here is also lighter which is a common theme in 2023.

Once again the Bearwallow is the most backward of all the wines in this vintage.  I’m not sure exactly why but one guess would be the deep end of Anderson Valley was the least heat effected area of the vintage for us.  This fruit came in looking more intact then any of the Sonoma Coast lots.  Because of this, the wine feels more fully formed at this young age.  The nose is very perfumed with bing cherries and crushed violets keeping the wine very lifted.  There’s always a bit of an exotic savageness to wines from this area and in 2022 that expresses itself as bergamot tea, crushed stones, chalk, white flowers and dusty earth.  It took some time in the glass to pull all of that out though.  This wine will require some patience.

This is definitely the most backward of the 2021s. Usually it’s one of the extreme Sonoma Coast bottlings that needs the most time to unwind but here this deep end Anderson Valley wine features abundant fruit tannin and natural acidity. I think the 12.9% alcohol also has something to do with that, there’s no glycerol sweetness to balance all the rawness of the wine at this early stage. The lower ripeness level leads to a wine that is light to medium in color and is focused aromatically on bright red fruits and floral notes of freesia and rose petals. The traditional wildness of Anderson Valley pokes in on the palate with chalk, mint, roasted herbs and loamy earth. Even for all the restraint, there’s a mouthwatering character to the wine that makes it appealing now with food and promises a long life ahead.

I should have started this mailer more specifically with thank goodness for Bearwallow. If there has ever been a debate about the value of geographic diversity, it has been answered in the affirmative with this wine in 2020. At barrel down, this was so much better than all the other Pinots we attempted to make. This wine was harvested September 10th and I don’t think any smoke had made it to the deep end of the Anderson Valley at that point. Given the warmth of the year, the fruit here is a bit darker than years past, leaning more toward black cherry, plums and dark currants. There is the usual Anderson Valley wildness on the palate with roasted herbs, black tea, loamy earth, sandalwood and violets. The tannins are firm but well integrated adding a warm, spicy note to the finish.

We’ve been working with this deep end Anderson Valley site now since 2015 and have quickly whittled down our single vineyard bottling to one block. The E2 block is a mixture of over 30 clones all randomly budded throughout the block. We attribute the aromatic complexity to this abundance of raw material. We also like the diversity in berry size, skin color and flavor components this wild genetic mix contributes. Blood orange, rose petals, camphor, spice and mint make this decidedly different in the line-up of 2019s. It has a savory, savage side that we love about Anderson Valley. Cherry fruit, raspberries and wet stone fill out the palate leading to a kaleidoscopic finish framed like most 2019s more with tannin than acidity.

We’ve been working with this deep end Anderson Valley site now since 2015 and have quickly whittled done our single vineyard bottling to one block. We have always loved the E2 section of the vineyard and focusing on this one area has provided what we think is our most complete Bearwallow to date. Addition through subtraction in this case has produced a high toned, more pure red fruited wine with notes of crunchy red apple skin, cherry compote and menthol. The aromatics are very developed with floral tones of rose petals and violets jumping out first followed by black tea and mint. Some of the savage nature of previous editions has been replaced by a more focused minerality on the finish.

We love the wildness of the Anderson Valley wine profile. For all the talk about house styles in wineries, we feel this wine proves our wines are products of place first and foremost. We take grape growing very serious and we feel all the quality of our wines comes from paying very close attention in the vineyard. Truthfully, once the grapes hit the winery, we don't do that much to them. With this Rhys site, we never have much to contribute. Kevin and his team do such a great job of farming, we never have to ask for anything. We always head out to the site looking to make suggestions but usually we just take a quick walk, see that everything is perfectly dialed and then go have lunch. The two blocks that make up this bottling are especially fascinating in their clonal make up and corresponding cluster morphology. The wine these vines produce has a nice mix of red and purple fruit, white flowers, white pepper, baking spice, loam and licorice. The fresh fruit core has plenty of lift from acidity and fruit tannin. This wine, like the Platt and Occidental Ridge, will take a little time to unwind in bottle.

We think this complements the 2015 nicely, possibly improving on that edition through the addition of another block and a better understanding of the site. It still reminds us a bit of the Occidental Ridge bottling in its abundance of fruit tannin. We’ve now seen the 2015 unwind over the past year so we see this doing the same but maybe needing an additional year due to the vintage. The complexion is a lighter red, more akin to the Summa bottlings. The red fruit profile is very fresh focusing more on pomegranate and cranberry. Coming from the newer plantings on the property, the wine lack some of the more rustic character associated with older Anderson Valley bottlings. To repeat what we said last year, we are very excited to be working with this site. You’ll see an equally exciting Bearwallow Chardonnay offered in February.

With increased yields, we were able to break every piece of this vineyard into a separate ferment.  What we found was a wild mix of the entire west Sonoma Coast spectrum:  crunchy red fruits, white flowers, savory herbs, baking spices, sous bois and pine resin.  It was a lot to take in.  After multiple tastings, what ultimately sorted the lots was texture and power.  We declassified about half of the vineyard by volume using impact as the primary decider.  There were 3 wines that were so quintessentially Sonoma Coast that they may represent the vintage and the area better than any other wine offered here.  Then there were 4 wines that just didn’t quite get there.  Yield no doubt contributed to that, especially since its largesse was driven mainly by berry size.  The resulting wine is comprised of 2 heritage clones and a little 777.  With a very light crimson color, it’s no surprise that what follows is decidedly red fruited with a mouthwatering crunch driven by the acidity always present in this site.  On the palate, the fruit is overwhelmed by an initial savory rush of sandalwood, pine needles, white pepper and licorice.  Skin tannin picks the fruit back up offering a framework for the finish, giving this otherwise understated wine a little more oomph and power.

This wine may be the most classic west Sonoma Coast wine in the portfolio.  It’s so purely cool climate Pinot Noir from the first sniff to the finish.  The fruit falls completely on the red side of the spectrum, the color is decidedly medium, the texture has a crunchy, mouthwatering snap and the finish is framed entirely by acidity.  This complete experience is created partly by the wild mix of clones throughout this tightly planted, 3-acre parcel.  We vinify everything separately and we certainly have our favorites, but the sum here outstrips any of the single plots.  Raspberries and pomegranate are the first fruits that come up on the palate giving the wine a heightened sense of acidity.  Anise, licorice and wood smoke add a savory tilt before all the natural acidity of the vintage kicks back in.  It’s only been three vintages so far, but this is the best effort from this vineyard to date.

This is only our second year with the Pinot Noir from this west Sonoma Coast site but we feel we have come to understand quickly what this vineyard wants to express.  Every one of the 5 lots from 2022 expressed a crunchy, extremely high toned and lifted red fruit component at pressing.  Given its proximity to Summa, I’d like to draw some parallels between the two sites but I can’t find them in the 2021s or 2022s.  Joy Road is Joy Road and not like anything else, actually maybe that’s the one thing it has in common with Summa.  There’s a mouthwatering, fresh fruit character here that stays very focused on sweet cherries and white flowers.  Both vintages of this wine have also had the highest degree of minerality of all the Pinot Noirs.  There’s a touch of graphite and crushed stones at the finish complemented by some redcurrants and black cherry.

We coveted the Pinot Noir from Joy Road well before we even started working with the Chardonnay in 2013. Having spent many years walking the Chardonnay block before harvest and sneaking in for a little taste of the various blocks of Pinot fruit along the way, we felt we had a pretty good sense of the entire vineyard. The Chardonnay block here is only a third of an acre and most of the Pinot blocks aren’t much bigger so combining several blocks into one ferment was the pre-harvest goal. As we got closer to picking, we couldn’t get a handle on exactly how we wanted to blend blocks so we ended up fermenting everything separately, 7 lots across 3 acres. It was a lot more work but ultimately gave us great insight into the vineyard character, upper slope vs. lower blocks, same clone/different rootstock, Dijon vs. heritage clones, etc. There were a few surprises along the way but that also makes this first edition a much stronger wine. Surprisingly strong and surprisingly weak blocks in 2021 were properly slotted to this new single vineyard designate and our Sonoma Coast bottling. In character and proximity it is closest to Summa, red fruited and higher toned with a lifted white flower and sandalwood perfume and a crunchy, cranberry tinged palate. The acidity carries the finish which feels typical for this western Occidental neighborhood. We ended up bottling about 60% of the wine as this new vineyard designate, curious to see what we get with a little more knowledge and a fresh crack at it in 2022.

Consisting of clones VR, Calera and Swan, the 2024 Silver Eagle reminds me most of our first ever vintage here, the 2009.  There’s a reductive arc that sits across the entire wine signaling its atypical concentration in this vintage and the power this site always produces.  A little whole cluster in the fermenter has balanced this trait in previous vintages.  Here though it greets you from the initial aromatic impression with notes of gunflint, loamy earth and a little sawdust.  Behind this backwards first note lies the red/black fruits common to this warmer site bringing in blackberry compote, plum, black tea, sassafras and truffle.  As usual, the wine is more balanced by its structure than its perceived acidity.  Fruit and stem tannin come in early to cut into the abundant fruit creating a wine that simultaneously will be an early drinker but will morph into something vastly different with age.

Every August when all 9 Pinots are in tank, I like to invite friends over for a quick preview tasting before the wines go to bottle.  It’s always a lot of fun and a good distraction from the looming harvest.  For me, I like the feedback.  I have a very singular way of seeing these wines no doubt colored by all the experiences that go into making them.  The biggest revelation in the lineup for the 2023s was the Silver Eagle Pinot.  It doesn’t mean it was the best wine in the vintage, more that it outstripped our expectations more than the other bottlings.  Three wines in and I feel like I’m already repeating myself but it’s the completeness of the wine that sets it apart from other vintages.  There are simply no rough edges to the wine.  Fermentation protocols were roughly the same as previous years.  15% whole cluster went into this combination of VR, Calera and Swan clones and the wine saw 20% new oak.  Purple flowers dominate the aromatics until a little savory note from the stems kick in.  The stems provide texture to the palate cutting into the generous fruit common for Silver Eagle.  Plums, black raspberries, gunpowder, white pepper and sweet herbs lead to the usual forward expression of this site.

Silver Eagle had the most normal vintage of all the single vineyard wines in 2022.  It provides an interesting snapshot of what the vintage would have looked like without the Labor Day heat spike.  It reflects the drought conditions of the year in its immensely concentrated nose of black raspberries, gun powder, camphor and incense balanced nicely by all the preserved acidity of the year.  The 15% whole cluster adds a little woodsy note to the finish.  As usual this has more generosity early on than the other bottlings reflecting the location of the site and the nature of the vintage.  There is a stem component though that adds structure throughout the palate experience helping to frame all this youthful fruit and give it just enough grip to focus and prolong the finish.

Silver Eagle was the only site for us that came in light in 2021 at just under 2 tons per acre. It is one of our earlier vineyards so there’s a chance it flowered in a period of erratic weather at the very beginning of the bloom cycle. We knew it was light from first glimpse seeing nice, open clusters and small berries. What this also meant in a warmer, drier harvest was an earlier than normal pick. All three of our blocks at Silver Eagle came in on August 30^th, a full 10 days before we picked anything else. The wine is incredibly concentrated, not unusual for this vineyard, but there’s a fruit purity that stands out making this instantly recognizable as Silver Eagle. The spectrum runs from deep red to purple fruits with elements of plum, sweet black cherry, pomegranates and black raspberries. We went a little higher on the whole cluster percentage in 2021 to help balance the concentration and add some mid-palate texture and aromatic pop. Even at 20% though, it’s hardly noticeable through all the palate weight. Somewhere deep down I’m sure there’s impact. The wine’s trajectory stays very focused and the mid-palate has a savory, textural component that adds smoke, graphite, mint, orange peel, lavender and spice to the framing tannins on the finish.

I love it when we achieve that backward, brooding Burgundian funk on the nose of our Pinots. Like the green tint in young Chardonnays, it is a sign of minimal handling, a quality which means all the youthful potential of a wine is perfectly preserved in bottle. One way we achieve this with Silver Eagle is through the addition of 10-15% whole cluster. I’m not sure if that’s the trait that aligns it with Occidental Ridge but they feel like companion wines in 2019. That little extra bit of structure and aromatic intrigue cuts through the primary fruit character inherent in the site. It broadens the entire experience of the wine. We have also been cutting back on the new oak percentage here landing at around 15% the last two vintages. The fruit profile here is blue, red and black packed with sweet red cherries, black raspberries and plum. There’s also a savory tilt toward gunpowder, dried herbs and mint. Like previous years, this wine will take a few years to unknit and I definitely think its best years are ahead of it. The cool, blue-fruited texture here lays on the palate for a full minute creating a very unique Pinot in 2019.

With a line up of Calera, VR and Swan clones, Silver Eagle now has a firmer, less fruit forward character than years past. The addition of 15% whole cluster in this vintage also makes this the most structured wine in the line up. The wine leads with a savory edge of tobacco, grilled nuts and dried flowers. Sweet red cherries, plum, licorice, leather and spice dominate the palate. There’s only 10% new oak here so the character of the vineyard in this vintage really shines through. We’ve been at it here since 2009 and feel extremely fortunate to be presenting our 10th edition of this site from Ulises Valdez and his family.

We noticed a real shift in quality for this bottling in 2016. This new edition takes things up another notch with the addition of some Swan clone and the declassifying of all the clone 828 into the Sonoma Coast. There’s a refined element to the wine that wasn’t in the early versions and we appear to have solved some of the reduction issues with the inclusion of 15% whole cluster. Coming from a warmer spot in Occidental, this still features the darkest fruit profile of all the bottlings but balanced by the high natural acidity of the vintage. This new clonal mix provides a lighter palate impact without sacrificing any of the density of the experience. Black cherry, cola, mint and wild herbs run from start to finish in this wine making it a good candidate to be the early drinker in the line up. We do however expect the stuffing in this wine to help with aging, the 2009 is just now entering its mature drinking window.

This bottling just keeps getting better. Being more selective with the blocks we use and slowly refining our winemaking, the wine has retained its warmer climate weight while getting more focused and losing its early reductive note. The whole cluster percentage has been bumped up closer to 20% to add some savory-ness and balance to the exuberant fruit character of the site. Black cherry, black tea and smoke dominate the palate with a small stem added herbal character creeping in on the finish. This carries a lot of primary fruit still which I think lends itself to cellaring. Sometimes in the wine world this is a little counter intuitive (aging fruit forward wines as opposed to structured wines) but in this case I think it will bring out much more complexity and balance over time. A recent bottle of our first ever Silver Eagle bottling, the 2009, bore this out with the wine showing nice tertiary herbal notes and a refreshing lightness that wasn’t there at bottling.

Every vintage we produce one or two wines that outstrip expectations.  For 2024, it’s the Occidental Ridge and Bodega Thieriot bottlings.  It seems odd that one of our flagships (this is our 20th harvest at OR!) could fit in that category but the wine is just so compelling it seems not of this year.  This is not a knock on 2024 but more a testament to the strength of Occidental Ridge in this vintage.  We always find a few occasions to try all 9 wines together before the release and this has consistently stood out in every tasting.  You taste enough wines from a given year, and you think you have a good sense of the bounds for what’s possible but then there’s always something that exceeds them.  I can’t say for sure why or how but it’s true here.  There are extra dimensions to the Occidental Ridge. Every aspect of the wine seems to have one additional element or layer.  Pennyroyal mint is there on the nose along with some orange zest, wild herbs and medium black fruits.  Acidity and tannin, some in the form of 15% whole cluster, give a bigness to the wine that is uncommon for the vintage.  The acidity contributes a mouthwatering quality that keeps the wine light.  Fruit rushes back in on the finish in the form of sour cherry, pomegranate and blood orange showing off the exceptional exposure of the site.

The most aromatically complex wine, the 2023 Occidental Ridge feels more fully realized than any other wine in the lineup.  We’ve been calling this our co-flagship for some time now and this edition further cements that title.  I really like the texture in this wine, there’s a nice prominence of acid and tannin that makes this wine feel very serious.  The 10% whole cluster helps with structure while balancing the naturally low pH the site offers up every year.  That abundant acidity keeps this wine mouthwateringly fresh and light on the palate.  A nice mix of red and black fruits, the flavor profile features elements of black raspberries, black cherries and redcurrants before moving into the traditional crushed mint and white flowers that begin on the nose.  It’s hard to say this is backwards because it has some much joy on the palate, but it may end up being the longest-lived wine from 2023.

We’ve run out of superlatives to describe the wines from this site.  It’s a beautiful piece of dirt to walk during the growing season but even that doesn’t prepare you for the greatness of the wines that have come from this vineyard.  When we are searching for sites worthy of vineyard designation we are always looking for parcels that make singular wines.  This is where Occidental Ridge has always shined.  The 2022 version features all the hallmarks of classic vintages from this site.  There’s an exotic perfume of pennyroyal mint, spearmint, toasted wood and bramble.  The palate is firm owing to a small whole cluster addition and the highest fruit tannin of all the vineyards we work with.  There’s a rich entry that helps balance the structure with darker fruits, purple flowers and sage.  This is currently holding a lot in reserve which is fitting for what we’ve seen here.  There’s a good chance this vineyard produces the longest lived wines in the portfolio.

I feel like this is entering Summa territory where we have run out of original ways to describe the greatness of this site. Somehow this manages to be one of the most generous wines in the lineup every year while also having the greatest aging potential. Our last bottle of the inaugural 2005, consumed two months ago, tasted like it was two years old. As much as we talk about the acidity on the far west coast, this site slightly inland from the town of Occidental always has the lowest pH at harvest. In looking at the three individual Dijon clones, pick pHs ranged from 3.31 to 3.43, even with brix levels of 23 to 24.4. I’ve never understood how this happens but have always been thankful for what it contributes to the finished wine, a wine with great pliancy that retains a firm, textured mid-palate with a mouthwatering finish. Our goal is always weightiness without heaviness and no wine speaks to that every year like Occidental Ridge. Black raspberries, black cherries, pennyroyal mint, sage and underbrush dominate the nose and palate finishing with a healthy dollop of fruit tannin which seems to be a theme this vintage but also a quality this site imparts every year.

Every vintage I have a personal favorite in each varietal’s line up. Without question in 2019, it is the Occidental Ridge. It certainly has to do with how much I enjoy the wine but also the memories of the growing season at this particular site, the several walks throughout the year and the fermentation cycle all contribute to the details behind the pick. One of the usual contributors to this annual contest is how well the full potential of the raw material is captured in the finished wine. We find ourselves too often looking for the flaws in what we make, it’s what motivates us to improve our farming and winemaking every year. Here though, we allow ourselves to simply enjoy the wine for how good it is and give ourselves the slightest pat on the back before getting back to the small tweaks we seek to implement after another year under our belts. Completeness has a lot to do with our enjoyment of this vintage of Occidental Ridge, there are no holes in the experience even at this young age. Drinking this wine is a densely packed experience. The tannins never overwhelm the fruit, the acidity keeps the wine mouthwateringly fresh and the aromatics sing at first sniff. We’ve talked about this site as the co-flagship of the Rivers-Marie Pinot line-up and this edition of Occidental Ridge only reaffirms that.

This feels like an anniversary themed mailer as this vintage represents Summa Old turning 40 and Summa and Occidental Ridge turning 20. This past year I’ve been thinking a lot about how the next generation will routinely be working with 50-70 year old Pinot and Chardonnay vineyards throughout Sonoma Coast. I have to admit that makes me a little jealous as I do believe vine age makes a tremendous difference with those two varietals. We are just beginning to see it with Occidental Ridge and the regular Summa bottlings as the consistent excellence of these two sites shines through in diverse vintages. Occidental Ridge in particular continues to ratchet up its intensity level while preserving the cool fresh fruit character and naturally high acidity that has become its hallmarks. There’s more of everything here but all in equal proportion. Pennyroyal mint and pine needles contribute a savory edge to complement the mostly black fruits of the vintage. There is once again a 10% whole cluster addition that adds texture and cut to the mid-palate.

Writing this note is beginning to feel like writing the Summa Old Vines note. We have kind of run out of original things to say about the wine. This has been a consistently great site since we started with it in 2005. The color here is almost as saturated as Platt. Dark red berries, menthol, smoke, pennyroyal mint and violets provide the initial aromatic impression. The always low natural pH gives this wine a lightness that belies its initial intensity. We started using a little whole cluster in 2012 to cut into some of the candied mid-palate we perceived in the early vintages and here it not only provides cut but also texture. The mouthfeel takes on a tactile quality that balances the darker fruits that emerge on the finish. Abundant fruit tannin once again provides the structure and this wine, like the Platt, will take a few years in the cellar to reach full potential.

This has joined the Summa bottlings as a flagship wine for us. Like those wines, we’ve kind of run out of things to say about it. This once again has the most fruit tannin of all the 2016 wines. The consistency of this vineyard continues to amaze us. The nose and palate is full once again of baking spice, pennyroyal mint, pine needles and red and black fruits. The abundant natural acidity adds a mouthwatering freshness that keeps the wine light without cutting into its concentration. The 10% whole cluster provides balance and a nice lift to the mid-palate. We’ve been making a concerted effort to try back vintages of all our wines the last few months and we’ve been amazed how well all vintages of Occidental Ridge have held up. The 2016 edition should continue this trajectory with a wine that drinks well now but has at least 15 years of cellaring ahead of it.

I referenced the success of this wine in the note above.  With the Occidental Ridge, it is hard to say exactly what elevated it in 2024.  With this Bodega Thieriot I think it’s obvious, vineyard maturity.  Coming after several years of drought busting rainy winters, we finally have a vineyard that is fully established.  All the unevenness of the early crops has been successfully navigated and now we have more uniform consistency across the 3 blocks at this 7.5-acre Pinot Noir vineyard.  With good root development these past few years, we have also been able to begin trimming irrigations which contributes additional concentration in the 2024.  Vineyard maturity coupled with the magical combination of this hillside and the Calera clone produced what might be the best wine in this lineup.  This and the Platt are the two darkest wines owing to the thick skins and small berries created by the wind-swept Freestone hillside.  A brooding, Burgundian nose gives a first impression of a shy wine but the crunchy red fruited entry on the palate quickly turns the wine into a juicy, multilayered powerhouse.  Wood smoke, rosehip, crushed vitamin, raspberry, incense and wet earth weave their way through the entirety of the palate.  What stamps itself most vividly though is the persistent acidity creating a lively, mouthwatering Pinot that stays light even in the shadow of all its power.

This coveted Freestone ridge site has everything going for it except yield.  This is our shyest producer in 2023.  Our 6 acres produced 6.068 tons in total with 1.35 of those going into the Sonoma Coast bottling.  The 10 barrels that make up this wine reflect all the greatest attributes of the vintage:  a saturated red complexion, focused, brooding aromatics and a fresh red fruit palate that feels fully realized.  The entire vineyard came in October 13th making it the penultimate Pinot Noir pick for 2023.  Like Platt, this wine tends toward a darker red hue owing to the stresses presented by the site and the small berry nature of the Calera clone.  The initial nose is a bit backwards leaning into a slightly smoky, reductive character that needs a little swirling to pop open.  The fruit character follows suit with a darker, incense and black tea note that finally opens into iron-laced black raspberries, rosehips and crushed violets.  This is a baby Platt for now but with a little more vine age it should be every bit as good as its next-door neighbor.

Here and Platt ended up being the coolest spots on the Sonoma Coast in 2022.  This comes as no surprise given its direct shot to the ocean and some degree saving elevation.  Elevation here is actually key year round, its warmer in the winter allowing for earlier bud break, some frost protection and temperatures that are more amenable to successful fruit set.  In the summer and early fall, we see cooler temperatures with this elevation allowing for longer hang time and less stress from the seemingly traditional Labor Day heat spell.  As I turned off Bodega Highway on September 6th, 2022, it was 101 degrees at the entry gate to Bodega Thieriot.  By the time I made it to Pinot Noir block 1, it was 92 degrees, not ideal but certainly manageable out there for one day.  We picked all three blocks of Pinot a week later after we had seen some dramatic cooling but before the rains that came a few days later.  All 9 acres here are planted to the Calera clone and that expresses itself clearly here with a deep pitched, brooding, dark fruited palate.  There’s lightness in the form of blood orange, lavender and sandalwood that cuts into the generous nature of the vintage. This is only our second bottling from this spectacular site and we have been really happy with the results but expect the best is yet to come.

I’ve never seen a new wine in an established line up contend for wine of the vintage. We should have known when we planted this 9 acre plot in 2017 that greatness would come early given the Freestone neighborhood in which it resides. In hindsight, one of the smartest things we did was to plant the entire vineyard to the Calera clone. There are 5 blocks from this vineyard all fermented and barreled separately and it’s hard to create a pecking order. With neighbors like Occidental Winery and Platt Vineyard, the character of the wine comes as no surprise. It’s darker fruited and brooding packed with fruit tannin and vibrant acidity that give focus and lift. This wind buffered site comes with thick skins so color comes easily even at lower brix levels. The perfume is what grabbed us first: lavender, licorice, violets and wood smoke. As good as all this is, the best news might be that we have a lease in place for 2/3s of this site through 2050. I doubt I’ll have much to do with it at that point but it should be an integral piece of the Rivers-Marie line up for generations to come.

Restoring this A+ site to full health continues out at Platt.  We felt like we were 95% there in the 2023 vintage and now it’s all about small tweaks to finish the job over the next few years.  2024 marks the first bountiful harvest at Platt in quite some time, in this case that was 3.5 tons from 1.75 acres.  The vintage was naturally bigger of course, but we also saw fruit from parts of our block that had been unable to support healthy ripening the last several years.  This increased consistency is where the greatness of the 2024 Platt lies.  Like its neighbor on the Freestone ridge, the combination of the Calera clone and this microclimate produce some of the most compelling Pinot Noir in the world.  Even more brooding than the Bodega Thieriot, there’s density here that comes from vine age.  It’s weighty but never heavy.  There’s also a class to this wine that can only come from a world class site.  Black raspberries, smoke, licorice and graphite combine to show off the complexity inherent in the vineyard.  Structure is provided by the tiny berries common with the clone.  This area of the west Sonoma Coast has quickly established itself as the current high-water mark for Pinot Noir in California.

Exciting times out at Platt in 2023.  The Platt Estate project is now well underway coinciding beautifully with the vineyard coming back into full health.  Also, Rivers-Marie, as of this vintage, is now the only grape buyer at Platt.  We are in our same 1.75-acre Calera clone block isolated in a small pocket of redwoods in the southeastern part of the property.  Yields in west Sonoma Coast for Pinot Noir were small in 2023 so there still wasn’t much to harvest but what did come in was healthier, more consistent in its ripeness and the product of a near ideal growing season.  Instead of the 2 barrels in 2022, we produced a whopping 3 in 2023.  The first thing you notice here is the color, always a saturated garnet due to the small berries and thick skins generated by this wind-blown site.  Savory characters dominate the early palate, roasted nuts, scorched earth and purple violets finally give way to a mix of red and black fruits that finishes with a touch of wood smoke and a Burgundian like crunchiness.  It’s good to see this site back on an upward trajectory under the careful eye of the team at AXA Millesimes.

This note could easily be the Bodega Thieriot note given their proximity and the clonal material we source from in both vineyards.  The real difference here is quantity.  Our 1.75 acre block yielded just under 1 ton total, leaving us with 2 barrels at bottling.  Because of this, we are offering Platt as a wish list option in 2022.  We will do our best to spread out the 500 or so bottles once we see what demand looks like.  This is maybe a little more red fruited and crunchy than the Bodega Thieriot.  There’s a feeling of higher perceived acidity here and a minerality that shoots through the entire palate.  Smoked meats, violets and wood smoke cut into the darker fruit finish making this one of the better efforts in the line up, we just wish there was more to go around.  2023 doesn’t get a lot better with three barrels currently in inventory but we are seeing a new qualitative push in the vineyard with AXA Millesimes’ acquisition of Platt in early 2022.  This should mean a return to better healthier yields in the near future coupled with even higher quality.

I love this wine, I just wish there was more of it. This part of the Freestone bench is slowly becoming the greatest area for Pinot on the Sonoma Coast. Our success with Platt is what inspired us to pursue the lease at Bodega Thieriot so vigorously. The wine is its usual darker than average color given the thickness of the skins in this block. There’s a brooding, Burgundian funk on the nose that fills up the room when you pour the first glass. It’s an exotic, kaleidoscopic mix of scorched earth, violets, spearmint, wood smoke and plums. As explosive as the nose and palate are, what really sets the wine apart is the texture. Every year this is the defining characteristic of the wine. It’s a wine that you feel as much as you taste. It coats the mouth and holds on. This is mainly fruit tannin that veers in several different directions contributing a scratchy, three dimensional palate impression that also adds a volume to the red and black fruits. There’s plenty of acidity to cut through the brooding initial impression. The cut here keeps the wine light on its feet and extends the finish for as long as you’d like it to last.

68 cases, I keep turning that number over in my mind. I thought 2018 would be about as small a crop as we’d see out here but 2019 came in at .7 tons/acre. We’ve seen that before out at Summa but never thought we’d see it here. In hindsight, the potential is there being up on a wind buffered ridge with direct line of sight of the ocean. We always talk about what naturally low yields mean to Pinot so we are seeing our third straight spectacular wine from this block of Platt. Quality is definitely trending in the right direction just need quantity to follow. This edition has more in common with 2018 than 2017. It’s a broader shouldered wine bolstered by formidable skin tannin and its always naturally high acidity. The aromatics are always the most Burgundian of the lineup featuring notes of sweet black fruits, smoke, candied peel, crushed stones and loam. Tannins poke in on the mid-palate contributed by the thick skins and tiny berries common in this Calera clone block. The finish is long and firm but stays succulent and juicy framed more by acidity than structure.

Even we were a little late to realize how good the 2017 version of this wine was. Maybe it was the small case production and therefore lack of opportunity to open bottles that created this but we made up for it after realizing our mistake. Coming into this release, I’d say the 2017 Platt is certainly one of the top 5 Pinots we have ever made. The 2018 eclipses that wine. It’s the closest thing to Burgundy I’ve ever tasted in California and not in the way most people think. The nose is what takes me there, that little bit of brooding, Burgundian reductive funk that both promises early intellectual intrigue and long life in the cellar. It drinks like a wine that needs to be unwound. The palate is savory and gamey, with a really dark fruit profile. Tannins here are abundant due to the thick skins of this wind buffered block. The only thing missing in this wine is quantity.

We are thrilled to offer our first vintage of Platt from what we feel is the best block in the vineyard. We had long admired Radio Coteau’s Platt offering (actually all of their wines) so we jumped at the chance to work with their block when it became available in 2017. The block is a little over an acre and a half and planted to the Calera clone. The wine has a density I have never really seen on the coast. The initial aromatic impression I only know how to describe as Burgundian reduction. It has a brooding, restrained perfume that we associate with high quality French Pinots. Though the color is dense, the wine is incredibly light on its feet veering from classic coastal notes of red berry, menthol, licorice and cloves to a tightly wound, structured finish. The tannin here is all fruit tannin and it is abundant. This wind buffered site produces berries with incredibly thick skins making for wines that will require some patience to unwind. I wouldn't quite classify this as an inward leaning wine but there is incredible potential here that will take a few years to come out.

These vintages are becoming a little more common out at Summa.  With the weather improving out on the far west coast and small increases to vine health, I feel like every three years we see a bumper crop at Summa.  Coming in at 2.5 tons per acre, this yield is in line with 2012 (a true anomaly at the time), 2018 and 2021.  These numbers allow us the financial flexibility in choosing which barrels make up the regular Summa bottling and what may need to be declassified into the Sonoma Coast.  Vintage characteristics in 2024 also helped create our favorite type of Summa, something lighter in color and more ethereal in body and character.  The exoticism of the Summa wines is what helps the site stand out from all others and this type of vintage makes that expression much easier to attain.  The classic red/orange fruit profile is there with elements of sandalwood, pine needle, sage and purple flowers weaving through.  There’s a resinous quality to the wine that gives an impression of darker fruits, but it stays more of a textural thing than a flavor characteristic.  Given this comes from a bigger berried year, the wine has more give at this point than normal.  Its immediate appeal offers a nice change from the super dense 2021 and 2023 editions making this Summa something to enjoy now and for decades to come.

This was picked October 15th; there’s no guarantee October 15th is a harvest day out on the far west Sonoma Coast.  This speaks volumes for the quality of the growing season in 2023.  Coming in at a fully mature 22.8 brix, this version of the Summa “regular” is less deep pitched and resinous than the vintages that directly precede it.  This shares more with Summa Old Vines in terms of color, aroma and palate than any vintage I can remember.  It still has a slightly more vertical feel to its build, but it is more ethereal and expansive young.  I think it’s more a function of the year but it also a crunchier fruit profile that clicks in before the Summa signature of red/orange fruits, sous bois, pine and baking spice finishes the palate.  The lingering acidity, another hallmark of the year, helps keep this mouthwateringly pure to the varietal and site.

This type of vintage brings me back to the early days out at Summa, vintages like 2004 and 2007, where we had to play a little defense against the combination of warm weather and a small crop.  Given our no till approach and a desire to dry farm this mature site, we were left with canopy management as our one tool to ride out the early September heat.  The improved vine health out at Summa over the last 10 years has made variable vintages much more consistent.  Very warm recent vintages like 2015 and 2017 could have been completely lost without this improvement.  In 2022, we were in even better shape with the late 2021 rains creating a bushy canopy that we maintained through the growing season.  The lack of direct sun on the grapes basically saved the vintage here and allowed us a post heat harvest window but before the rain came September 17th.  The resulting wine is very deep pitched and resiny, more of a textural experience at this point than flavor.  Mulberries, baking spices, redcurrants, ripe cherries and the traditional orange zest come up quickly as the wine then turns darker and a little weightier.  The generosity here is definitely related to the warmer year.  Some wood notes and a slight dry graham cracker come up at the end.  The classic Summa notes shine through here but the vintage provides the even bigger stamp making this far more approachable than most young Summa bottlings.

For me this forms a solid trinity with vintages 2012 and 2018, three years that featured abundant set out on the coast but came in fully developed due to long hang time and near perfect growing seasons. More so than even the other early fully formed wines in 2021, you could drink the regular Summa Vineyard from fermenter. There’s never been a sharp edge to this wine. Instead, time in barrel has added more energy and structure to the wine, allowing it to tighten up, focus and turn slightly reductive as we prepare to rack it for bottling. We always talk about making these wines as naturally as possible and the ultimate goal of that philosophy is allowing wines to find their center. This can take many forms, most involve taking an unpolished lot and letting it sort out its angular early stages. Very occasionally the center exists in the exact opposite direction when you have a wine so thoroughly developed as raw material, you want it to find some rough edges to add character and complexity. This is the case with the 2021 Summa Vineyard. The fruit spectrum veers from red to black to blue, reserving most of the orange elements for the Old Vines bottling. The palate is packed with higher toned elements of red cherries, redcurrants, kirsch and raspberries. The traditional savory features kick in early adding mint, rose petal and a crushed stone minerality. The tannins are very fine grained but still add a crunchiness to the red fruits creating an additional mouthwatering element to the finish.

When I cracked this wine to write a tasting note, I poured a glass and walked away to grab my laptop and start jotting down thoughts about the 2019 vintage. Finally ready to write, I took a quick first sniff and was convinced I had mistakenly opened a Summa Old Vines given the aromatic intensity. It brought a smile to my face to grab the bottle and see that it was as originally intended, my first bottle of the regular 2019 Summa Vineyard bottling. This speaks to just how far this bottling has come over the last 5 years. It has narrowed the gap to an almost imperceptible margin when compared to the Old Vines version. The difference has manifested itself on the nose and on the broadness of the palate. This bottling has added some of the savory characteristics of its elder sibling while retaining the deep, rich core that differentiated it in the past. There’s the classic Summa orange/red fruit profile that runs throughout the wine but it’s now joined by pine needles, cut hay and sage. A sanguine note also comes out on the end adding a coastal salinity to the palate. The only thing this wine lacks in comparison is the ethereal quality of the Old Vines, something only time can contribute.

I felt like this was the most complete wine in the lineup at bottling and that continues to be the case today. At 20 years of vine age, there is no longer an impression of this being the baby Summa bottling. Better farming and vine maturity have eliminated all the holes found in previous editions of this wine. It has also provided nuance that makes this wine more and more similar to its Old Vines sibling every year. This once again is richer and a little deeper than that wine but it is beginning to catch up on the ethereal side of things. There’s a lightness that cuts into the richness which provides a mouth-watering freshness to the palate. Red fruits, citrus peel, cut hay, sandalwood and clove complete the experience.

The palate here is usually very deep compared to the Old Vines broad, initial appeal. With vine age, this wine is getting a little closer to its older sibling every year. It is still a more generous wine at release given its core of red fruit but all of the Old Vines elements are creeping into the palate. A savory edge has emerged the last few years that we think will only intensify with time. For all the dark cherry and plum, there are equal parts mint, licorice and pine resin. This bottling is still a more immediate drinker than Summa Old Vines but now at 20 years of vine age, the profile gap is closing. With more normal yields in 2017, we also were able to be more selective. Even so, we are happy to be able to actually offer some quantity of this wine to you. Most years, Mother Nature isn't so kind.

It’s nice to have a reasonable quantity of this wine again. With increased vine age, the regular Summa has taken on increased seriousness over the past few vintages. As the block creeps up on twenty years of age, it grows closer in character to the Old Vines bottling. It still is a bit deeper than that wine but it has become less linear and more broad at release. It may still not have the ethereal character of its sibling bottling but everything else is there: red/orange fruit, forest floor, clove, cut hay and sandalwood. Given the extreme location of this site, the fruit always has the thickest skins of all the vineyards we work with. The structure here is definitely a direct result of this site condition. This, like the Old Vines, sees more oak than the other single vineyard wines to help round out some of its youthful, angular nature. The crop level in 2016 allowed us to hang the block out a little longer then we could in 2015 producing what might be the most complete wine in the lineup.

We say this bigger crop and in a relative sense that’s true, but it looks identical to Platt this year, 3.5 tons from a 1.75-acre footprint.  It’s a privilege to steward this site.  In a wine world where sameness can often the rule the day, it’s nice to have our flagship wine come from a vineyard with inherent uniqueness.  We’ve been out here for a while now so most of the heavy lifting has been done, now it’s all about refinement.  Most of that is achieved by a continued focus on vine-to-vine farming.  As the old vines round the corner to 50, there aren’t two plants that are identical in the whole block.  It’s a boring story and sounds a bit cliched but it’s all about drilling down on the smallest details.  With the regular Summa, you notice the fruit first but here it is savory making the initial impression.  Forest floor, damp loam, pine resin, red flowers, anise and the greatest stamp of minerality of all the wines in the lineup complement the red fruit/orange zest profile.  A little black tea comes in on the finish adding a perception of structure to the fruit tannin that starts early on the palate.

Every year this wine gets a little bit better driven entirely by the all the work we put into the vineyard.  Early versions of this wine had a real wildness to them that though intellectually interesting, were driven by imbalances in the vineyard or inconsistency in the fruit.  I don’t have any interest in making a wine from a million identical grapes, there’s some complexity lost in that tight of a band, but there needs to be some level of similarity to achieve the highest quality.  With more detailed farming in our 550-vine block of Summa Old Vines, we feel we have achieved this goal in 2023.  It comes down to a combination of a million small tweaks but manifests itself in the serious intactness of the finished wine.  I can’t really nail it down to one or two things, but fruit thinning (one of the simplest and most obvious passes) might be what separates the previous few years from everything that came before.  2023 was not a big vintage but it was high quality from the start.  Knowing this, it made the three passes near harvest easier to execute to achieve what we felt at the time could be a legendary Summa Old Vines bottling.  The cool, damp October Saturdays also encouraged us to spend more time on the canopy near the end which of course turned our eyes to the condition of the fruit.  The resulting wine is so packed with everything that makes Summa great, it takes a while for the wine to pop open in the glass.  This has always been the case, 5 years in bottle is our general rule of thumb.  Most people think of melting away structure when they think of teasing out a wine’s character, but here it is simply concentration.  Not extraction or abundant fruit just stuffing, I don’t know how else to describe it.  This is a singular wine, it always has been, we have simply refined the experience.

As with Platt, I think we need to talk about allocations first.  The far Sonoma Coast gives abundantly every so often (2012, 2018 and 2021), spoiling us into thinking we’ve figured out this yield thing on the coast.  2022 reminded us we have not.  With only 5 barrels and skyrocketing demand for this wine, we have decided to offer one bottle this year in an attempt to get this into as many people’s hands as possible.  Allocating wines is an inexact science and we’ve found in the past when the most coveted cuvee sells out too quickly, the disappointment across the list far outweighs the handwringing of smaller allocations.  Unfortunately, 2023 doesn’t look any better for this wine, with another 5 barrel production currently resting in the cellar.  So that’s the bad news.  The good news continues to be the upward qualitative trajectory of this site even in the most challenging of vintages.  This wine might not achieve the level of the 2018, 2019 or 2021 but it comes close, a testament to renewed vine health and better detailed vineyard management.  The wine is its usual transparent red, very medium in color.  The fruit is predominately a crunchy cranberry complemented by all the savory Summa elements creeping in: forest floor, pine needles, resin, smoke, Asian spices and lavender.  The only complaint we ever have about this wine is how much we make of it, that could be 5 barrels or 50.  We’ve said it before but we feel very fortunate to be stewards of this amazing plot.

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.

I’ve been writing notes for this mailer in pairs the last few nights. I have a case box with a bottle of each wine standing up waiting to be popped. It’s been amazing how the random drawing of wines has led me to perfectly appropriate vineyard pairings each evening. Tonight, it’s Platt and Summa Old Vines, the two most intense bottlings in the lineup. Though they translate very differently once finished, both sit at the extremes of what’s possible on the Sonoma Coast. I love the color of this Summa Old bottling, it’s decidedly red but so transparent and translucent. Its appearance would suggest a light wine but the palate experience is incredibly firm. We’ve talked about the aromatic fireworks in this wine for 17 vintages now, veering from candied orange peel to sweet red fruits to deep into the savory elements of a complex Pinot Noir, sandalwood, sous bois, pine needles, cut hay, mint and camphor. The wine smells dense at its core but the expansive aromatics keep it light and refreshing. The palate experience is very broad and again there’s an amazing weight that doesn’t come across as heavy or tiresome. This is a wine to cellar for sure but I can’t help but taking a lot of pleasure in popping and drinking this tonight.

I could write a note on the aromatics alone for this wine. It literally features every aromatic descriptor we have ever used for this bottling: sandalwood, pine needles, black tea, orange peel, forest floor, pomegranate, violets and crushed rock. That’s a lot to take in on just the nose. The palate is its normal backwards self, another edition that will best be enjoyed with at least 5 years in the cellar. At 40 years old, the vineyard is still improving producing much more consistent wines even in more challenging climatic conditions. We have been replacing underproducing vines in this block every year since 2015 and have every intention of preserving this coastal jewel. There are occasional vintages where another bottling may outshine the Summa Old bottling but this will always be the flagship of the project.

Here we could copy and paste our notes from the last few vintages. This wine has gotten so consistently good since Ulises Valdez and his crew took over farming. The color is more stable, aromatics are more explosive and the depth of the wine has increased starting with the 2014 vintage. The 2017 continues this trend and might be the best wine from this vineyard in that 2014-2017 vintage span. It would be easy to say every year that this is the best wine in the line up but I do truly believe it in ’17. It’s the completeness of the wine that best conveys this message. It will be one of those wines that drinks well now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now and until it decides to give out. The characteristics of the wine are pure Summa: red/orange fruit, cut hay, pine needles, purple flowers, crushed rock and wet earth. It has a lingering inner mouth perfume that pulls out more floral notes and a more pure red fruit profile. There’s the usual weightiness without heaviness at the finish complemented by the natural acidity of the site. As we move into the 40th year of these vines, we expect this lithe density to continue trending upward offering more mouthwatering power that only vine age can provide.

This has a more pure red color than in years past. I’d attribute that to improved farming and the vintage in general. Nose is classic Summa though, full of Christmas spice, forest floor, clove, sandalwood and citrus peel. The acidity here is incredibly high, cutting through all the primary fruit this young vintage possesses. Structure comes up in the end as usual giving the impression the best years for this wine are well ahead of it. As good as we thought this bottling was the first 10 or so years we made it, the last three vintages have taken it to a level we didn’t see coming.