Introduction

Thomas Rivers Brown, who bought the vineyard 2 years ago, was on hand for the festivities and we tasted all his Summa Old Vines 2002-2010. Additionally we tasted Littorai Summa from 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006.
We started with some other wines that had been made previously, the Muller Summa 1998 and 1999 and a 2004 Brogan Summa Young Vines. TRB also brought along a 1984 Summa that was made by the previous vineyard owners, the Zellers. Thank you Thomas for all your insights!

The 17 wines showed well overall and I think there is only tremendous upside to the future. I felt a little overwhelmed as we are blessed to live in an area with so many great wines that sometimes it feels like we are splitting hairs.

The 1984 Summa had some character but was fairly dead. Some Leaves, tea, muted spices and Bouilabaise type feel to it, but was also not totally dead.

My highlights were all from the Rivers Maries. 2005 and 2009 were way ahead of the others with 2002 and 2010
just a slight step behind. 2007 was very primary and will really need several more years to unwind. 2008 had a slight smokeiness but not enough to turn me off. 2006 was simple compared to the others. All the Rivers Maries showed varing degrees of brown spices, tea, rhubarb with less orange rind than my previous experiences and were all wines I would want to have again.
I thought that the wines were a little bit too cold to show their real stuff and though we spent 45 minutes on each flight I wish I had a lot more time with them as they were showing me different things over the time we did have.

The littorais seemed more polished and the oak treatment had been more intrusive to them, but nothing really stood out to me. I have had limited exposure to these wines but I think I prefer their older vintages and other vineyards. Their appearance looked better but did not compare to the Rivers Maries which were more lively.
The Mullers again were Ok but just that, nothing memorable. The Brogan Young Vines was very good but would not pay a big premium to chase these down.

Closing

My Overall feeling is that TRB is managing the vineyard now and has a real grasp on what he wants to do and we will see a constant improvement on these wines moving forward and I will be buying(our limited amount)!

Ranking top to bottom RM- 2005, 2009, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010,2004, 2008, 2006