Summa Vineyard Pinot Noir

First Summa Vineyard from my allocation. It is quite nice. Still needs a few years.

The body feels thicker than other Pinots I’ve had. Plum pudding, dry cranberries, poached strawberries, blackberries, black raspberries, highlights of pomegranate & blueberries, mix berry cola, licorice nibs, dry herbs, moist volcanic clay, limestone marl, dry twig, dry crushed rocks, some grilled meats, dry tobacco, used leather, barrel shavings, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon & vanillin, fresh & withering, dark, red, flowers, excellent round acidity and a well balanced, tensioned, structured with a well polished finish that lasts a minute.

Very lifted and bright. A light candied edge to lots of raspberry fruit.

This was interesting. Powerful aromatics hinted to a big wine. However, medium bodied and soft on the pallet. Really impressive wine.

Drinking really well at the moment. I popped and poured this, and while it could have used a 30min-1hr decant, it really came alive out of the bottle after the first glass.

My main thought here is how elegant this is. Not overpowering with fruit but certainly not thin in structure. Black cherries, plum, spiced rhubarb and some chamomile on the nose. The palate is open for business with a vein of acidity down the middle alongside underripe red and black fruits, herbal spice, black tea and some mint. I didn’t necessarily find some of that RM signature orange zest, but blood orange had its profile all over this in a restrained way. The way this bottle is trending, I could see this maybe showing a slight uptick in integration, but I’m hard pressed to say this will get better…just different. The only other 2016 RM Pinot I’ve had was Silver Eagle (darker, more rich than this Summa), so I wonder how the other Pinots are drinking…

There are times when I feel like I have opened bottles of this wine too you g, and times when I feel like I have waited too long. But on this day, Summa was singing a beautiful song. Gorgeous acidity, deep raspberry and sour cherry fruit shot through with a dusting of dried sage and other herbs, and a lovely dried flower and citrus bite that lingered for a long time. Fantastic.

Gorgeous.

Delicious, better on day two quite ripe but acid of 10’ still quite evident. Dark kirsch and monumental finish.

Cherry cola bergamot orange (earl grey) still singing...

This is the first of the 14 and this confirms there has been a shift in the profile of Summa over the last several vintages. These have trended towards all red fruit and don’t show the dark fruit, spice notes, and orange peel that are rivers-marie hallmarks. This is very light bodied and translucent, has medium acidity and a nice alc level at only 13.4% but it tastes like those strawberry wrapper candies you get at grandmas house and that flavor is very pronounced. The last couple vintages have shown this as well and as it ages it turns more sour and and more brandied (as I experienced in a couple recent bottles of the 12). I’m still a fan of the house, but think I’m done with this vineyard.

The previous bottle of this I said was atypical of the house style. This bottle was exactly the same, however upon discovering that I plugged it up and revisited it 24hrs later to find a transformation had occurred. It loosened up on those heavy brandied cherry notes and showed the more typical spice and orange peel I love in rivers marie.