2016 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Occidental Ridge Vineyard

Smoky, meaty, earthy forest floor notes emerge from the 2016 Pinot Noir Occidental Ridge Vineyard, and it picks up more sweet plum, raspberry and blood orange notes with time in the glass. Seeing 10-15% whole clusters, it has a savory, exotic style, beautiful fruit, a great mid-palate, and outstanding length. Give bottled 2-3 years as well. 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.