2019 Pinot Noir Summa Vineyard

This is another stellar set of wines from Rivers-Marie. The Chardonnays and Pinots are both terrific in 2019. That's the good news. The less good news is that production for some of the wines is down sharply, as much as 50% for both Summa Pinots and the Platt Pinot, where yields were a miserly 2/3rds of a ton per acre. Thomas Brown describes 2019 as a cooler year than 2018, without the customary heat wave that usually arrives in September. In tasting, that translates to Chardonnays and Pinots that are pretty nervy. As a group, the Chardonnays are more open and easy to enjoy young than the Pinots, which are all going to need a few years in bottle to be at their best. Although the 2019 Pinots don't quite reach the stratospheric heights of the 2018s, they come very close. In time, those margins - which are pretty narrow to start with - may very well tighten, as 2019 is the sort of vintage that often needs bottle age to reveal its full potential. Readers will have a great time comparing the Pinots from these two superb vintages for many years to come. The Chardonnays saw 14 months in oak, with no lees stirring and just one racking at bottling. New oak was around 25%. For the Pinots, aging was around 10 months in oak, with racking after malolactic fermentation and prior to bottling. New oak is 10-100%, depending on the wine, although none of the 2019s show a strong imprint. These remain some of the most compelling Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs being made in California today. The biggest challenge readers will face is choosing among the various bottlings. For me, the most significant development at Rivers-Marie is that the average quality of the wines has increased. A few years ago, there were often one or two wines that weren't quite at the level of the best. That is rarely the case these days.