Re - 2019 Rivers-Marie Spring Chardonnay Offer

Email today,

The 2019 Rivers-Marie Spring Chardonnay Offer will go live on Tuesday, February 12th at 9:00 AM PST. As in the past, this release is via email only. At the time the release opens, you will receive an email with a link to the offer and your log-in credentials.


The offer:

2017 Rivers-Marie Sonoma Coast Chardonnay – $30/btl

2017 Rivers-Marie Bearwallow Vineyard Chardonnay – $50/btl

2017 Rivers-Marie Joy Road Vineyard Chardonnay – $50/btl

2017 Rivers-Marie Purrington Rued Vineyard Chardonnay – $50/btl

2017 Rivers-Marie Platt Vineyard Chardonnay – $60/btl

2017 Rivers-Marie B. Thieriot Vineyard Chardonnay-- $60/btl



If you need to change your contact information in advance of the release, please email Will Segui at will@riversmarie.com and we will be happy to update your information.

Thank you for your continued support!

Thomas Rivers Brown and Genevieve Marie Welsh

Will get a few Thieriot, Bearwallow and Joy.

This is tough right after BD10 and Ceritas.

I like all the Rivers Marie wines but especially the whites The B Theriot vineyard is my favorite California Chardonnay

SC goes very quickly

I have to agree with you on that. Add the PMR from Ceritas and I’m all set.

We knew Platt would be a new offering, but I don’t recall anything about Purrington Rued. Does anyone have any information about this? Thanks.

Offer is open. Took some Platt to try and some Thieriot.

Have to go light this time.

They added reviews to them - 2017 Rivers-Marie “B. Thieriot Vineyard” Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—150 cases

‘Lemon peel, white flowers, chalk, and mint all grace this exquisite, nuanced Chardonnay…’ - 95 pts, Antonio Galloni

Have they always done that?

I took 2 sonoma coast, 1 B. Thieriot & 1 Purrington Rued. I’m full on chardonnay right now, I’ll regret not buying more in 5 years as these come into there own.

I was blown away by the Chardonnays and Pinots I tasted from Rivers-Marie this year. - Antonio Galloni

Late Winter 2019

I’m sure it feels like you just heard from us because, of course, you did, a couple times. We liked the way the three-mailer system worked last year so we are going with it again in 2019. We also feel our Chardonnays deserve their own space especially in a vintage as strong as 2017. Occasionally the quality of Pinot Noir vs. Chardonnay in the same vintage from the coast can be pretty disparate. Chardonnay comes in later so maybe there’s a little rain, fog or heat (for better or for worse) that separates the two varietals’ harvest narrative. Not here though, both fared incredibly well with all the fruit being picked in a beautiful harvest window beginning September 6th and wrapping September 25th. 2017 was a return to cooler temps on the coast which always makes for more classic Pinot and Chardonnay vintages. It was also a return to the normal temperature disparity from inland Napa to coastal Sonoma. During the drought years, we’d leave Calistoga to head out to Occidental and the temperature would maybe drop 10 degrees. In 2017, we’d leave our house to head to Summa and see a 25-30 degree swing. This cooler pattern preserves acidity that is abundant in this vintage, featuring the lowest average natural pH of any year we have produced. The wines are more citrus than tropical and, in our opinion, capture a sense of site that is unmarked by vintage character.


2017 Rivers-Marie Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—210 cases

‘Orchard fruit, crème brûlée, butter, tangerine and yellow flowers all develop in a deeply-layered, resonant, utterly gorgeous Chardonnay.’ - 93 pts, Antonio Galloni

This version of the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay contains pieces of all of the single vineyard wines plus Riddle Vineyard as its base. The racy character of the wine gives you an insight into the overall vintage character on the coast. Here the expression specifically is wet stones, lime blossom, green apple and a touch of honeysuckle on the finish. The wine is focused, pure and precise. With 0% new oak and no lees stirring, there’s nothing to get in the way of the fruit. The vintage helps make this our most successful appellation Chardonnay to date but also severely limited quantity. We expect this to go fast.

2017 Rivers-Marie “Joy Road Vineyard” Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—110 cases

‘Apricot, peach, yellow flowers, chamomile and lightly honeyed notes’ - 92 pts, Antonio Galloni

We love the uniqueness of the wines from this Terry Adams owned site in Occidental. No two vintages have been the same in our brief history here. This wine strikes a middle ground stylistically compared to previous years. It is not quite as fat and viscous as the 2015 or lean and flinty as the 2016. It also possesses a little more varietal character than those two previous vintages. There’s a chalkiness that is distinctly Chardonnay but not necessarily California Chardonnay. It is more Chablis like in its racy finish and smoke and beeswax palate notes. The focus of the overall wine is what I keep coming back to though, there’s a precision here that Joy Road has never possessed before.


2017 Rivers-Marie “Bearwallow Vineyard” Chardonnay Anderson Valley—210 cases

‘The 2017 Chardonnay Bearwallow Vineyard bristles with tension, nuance and brilliance. Lemon confit, tangerine, white flowers, mint and almond are beautifully delineated and vibrant.’ - 93 pts, Antonio Galloni

It’s nice to see this stand out from the pack, mostly because it should. Our winemaking style has always produced site driven wines first and here we get a small assist from the vintage to complete the delineation. This might be the one bottling that has a little more give than its previous vintage version. It is once again yellow fruit focused with additional notes of hazelnut, white peach, guava and chamomile. A little bit of white chocolate emerges on the finish to give more roundness to the wine.


2017 Rivers-Marie “Purrington Rued Vineyard” Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—90 cases

‘White flowers, mint, passionfruit and orchard fruit notes are all laced throughout this arrestingly beautiful Chardonnay.’ - 95 pts, Antonio Galloni

We are incredibly excited to add this site to the line up. When Ulises Valdez first showed us this newly leased piece, we thought we’d grab some for our Sonoma Coast bottling. After fermentation and a small dig into the history of the site, we knew this four barrel lot was destined for vineyard designation. Planted in 1969, the vine age is immediately apparent on the palate of the wine. There’s impact but it is subtle. At 50 years old, the wine is now more about the site than the clone. Rued clone Chardonnays are usually more tropical than this but here the expression is unique to the wine’s location. Apricots, almonds, nectarine, brioche and tangerines dominate a palate that at times takes an almost Alsatian turn in character. Like the other wines in the line up, there’s no mistaking this for any other site once you have some experience with it. Unfortunately the four barrel won’t go far but we hope to make a little more in the future (2018 is a whopping 6 barrels) and keep this around as a permanent part of the line up.


2017 Rivers-Marie “Platt Vineyard”Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—120 cases

‘Orange peel, mint, chamomile, dried flowers and buttery notes infuse this sumptuous, oily Chardonnay.’ - 94 pts, Antonio Galloni

Whereas Purrington Rued was a bit of an unknown to us, we knew to expect great things from Platt. After a less than stellar 2016, we now feel that we have captured all the greatness of this site. Perched near the top of the range in Freestone, this 1.5 acre block of Wente clone Chardonnay came in just above 2.5 tons an acre in 2017. The initial pressed pH of 3 is the lowest we have ever seen at Rivers-Marie. This site is cooler than even Thieriot and that comes through in the character of the wine from its initial, bracing acidity to the long lemon oil dominated finish. Sandwiched in between this are notes of poached pear, honeysuckle, white pepper, white peach and pineapple. There’s a mild honeyed note that arches over the wine due to a little botrytis in 2017. The acidity is what you always come back to though, focusing the wine and prolonging the finish for a minute plus.


2017 Rivers-Marie “B. Thieriot Vineyard” Chardonnay Sonoma Coast—150 cases

‘Lemon peel, white flowers, chalk, and mint all grace this exquisite, nuanced Chardonnay…’ - 95 pts, Antonio Galloni

This special site right across the street from Summa proves more interesting to us every year even as we begin to run out of original things to say about it. We’d attribute that to better farming but also to vine age. Planted in 1990, we have begun to see “old vines” qualities come out in this wine the last several years. Consistency is probably the most valued attribute as this vineyard has weathered the droughts, deluges and heat of the last several years. Through it all, the wines produced from here continue to show site character first and vintage character second. There is an amazing palate presence in this wine but it never comes across as taxing. Freshness is probably the first thing we look for in our Pinots and Chardonnays and this wine always has that mouthwatering acidity that keeps the wine lively. The Thieriot has a crushed rock minerality that separates it from all the other wines in the line up. Its proximity to the coast also provides saline and oyster shell notes that are more aligned with grand cru Chablis than California Chardonnay. The complexity here increases every year and we are thankful that this special site has been the cornerstone of the Rivers-Marie Chardonnay program now for over 10 years.

Super painful after the Aubert release, but I did 1 Sonoma, 1 Platt, 1 B. Thieriot, 2 Purrington. Really exited to try to the Purrington…didn’t realize there is still pre-1970s Chardonnay vines around in that area.

LOVE me some RM SC Chard…but just 2 bottles? I’ll be out in a week! [tumbleweed.gif]

Took the same. First time trying RM Chardonnays; looking forward to comparing them to the ones I drink on a regular basis.

This offer broke the bank. Now where do I get funds for Bedrock.

Restrained myself. Only grabbed three.

In, I grabbed three as my wheel house is in the red zone.

2 Bearwallow & 2 Purrington

I like these very much and find them very graciously priced.

Took 2 SC and 1 B. Thieriot. Too good of a qpr to pass.

First timer for their Syrahs so grabbed 2 each of Joy Road, Bearwallow and B. Thieriot. Thought about the mixed case but didn’t really feel a need for the 4 SBs. Definitely seemed like a good deal though.