As promised, tomorrow’s mailer. If you have any questions, let me know. --will
Summer 2024
To lead off, we should start with an understatement before we drill down on the specifics. 2022 was a tricky vintage. It was a vintage that required great patience to evaluate after a torrid, hurried harvest that rolled in across several, short chapters. We are down to four wines this vintage giving this release a sense of where Rivers-Marie was 10 years ago or so. Even with the diminished SKU count, there are wines here from every period of the 2022 harvest. As we sat and tasted lots throughout the 20 months of elevage, we began to see what worked best in 2022 and what needed to be discarded. In this year, it was even a little more complicated than that. There was a lot of in-between in 2022. Our first thought was where are the reserve wines? It felt like we had some good appellation level wines but where was the sense of place in the best wines? 2022 imprinted a strong stamp on every wine we tasted early in their development. Every tasting went the same way, taste everything and shuttle down (or out) anything that wasn’t up to par with years past. In the beginning, there was a lot of bloodletting but as the wines matured, our lineup stabilized and began to take shape. On the single vineyard front, two Oakville wines emerged as the class of the vintage, MBar Ranch and Oakville Terraces, but for different reasons. As we saw a pecking order emerge, we also began to figure out what contributed to the success at the higher end. For MBar, the vineyard was basically ready to harvest before the extreme Labor Day heat hit. That earlier development left it unaffected at harvest even if it took us a day into the heat window to grab the fruit. Oakville Terraces was in a similar spot but also aided by its hearty character from years of surviving in rocky, eastern Oakville hillside terrain. So, there are the high-water marks. As for our other two normal single vineyard wines, Panek and Vidovich Lane, they proved to be too marked by the vintage to be standalone wines. After everything was sorted, they ended up being the only lots we retained for the Napa bottling. For the hometown Calistoga bottling, Larkmead had a tremendous showing, easily making a SVD cut if such a wine existed in the Rivers-Marie portfolio. Instead, it anchored the Calistoga and was joined by a parcel of Peterson Family Vineyard (Switchback Ridge) Cabernet. Larkmead thrived due to its late harvest nature and vine age, Peterson due its bushy, split canopy and vine age. So, there you have the four survivors after much work and deliberation. The vintage as a whole is juicy, fruit forward and generous making it accessible upon release. As we taste these wines, we are also seeing a disconnect between color and palate weight. The hues are best described as medium setting an expectation for the same in terms of impact. The disconnect is obvious early on though as the palates are more layered and structured than the color suggests and that only gets more pronounced as you move up the qualitative ladder. As with all previous years, these wines reflect the vintage in which they were grown.
The 2022s and Allocations
As you can see from the notes above, only six vineyards made it to bottle for us in 2022: Mbar, Oakville Terraces, Larkmead, Peterson Family, Panek and Vidovich Lane creating 4 bottlings in total. Panek being our biggest single vineyard wine normally has created a disproportionate amount of the Napa Valley due to its declassification so that wine leads our release with a six-bottle allocation. Calistoga and the two single vineyards were all produced in roughly the same quantities so there are three bottles of each offered in this mailer. As usual, everyone receives the same allocation. There will be no wish list option or magnums for this release.
2022 Rivers-Marie Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley—650 cases, 14.9% alcohol, 70% new oak
I’m hoping this proves to be a one-off version of our Napa bottling. Comprised entirely of Panek Vineyard and Vidovich Lane Vineyard, both in St. Helena, this wine received quite the upgrade of fruit sourcing due to the vintage. Both wines were a hair short of making the single vineyard cut due more to the sameness imparted on sites by the vintage rather than overall quality. Panek just didn’t taste like the Paneks of the past. Sitting in roughly the hottest part of the valley, the heat really limited site expression here. The same could be said about VLV but due more to vine age than precise location. What these wines produced were really great examples of the St. Helena AVA rather than individual sites within. They both featured bright red and blue fruits, sweet tobacco, sandalwood, caramelized brown sugar and a varietal herbaceousness that usually takes a few years to come out in bottle. Color here can be deceptive, checking in at a decidedly medium hue that belies the palate impact that follows. As these lots rested in barrel, structure and fruit density increased every time we sampled the wines culminating in a layered, forward fruited wine that well represents the vintage experience for the entire Napa Valley.
2022 Rivers-Marie Cabernet Sauvignon Calistoga—295 cases, 14.9% alcohol, 70% new oak
Larkmead may have been the second best Cabernet we made in 2022. It was also the last lot we harvested for the vintage, running counter to what most people have said about the more successful vineyards in 2022. The deeper soils and 25+ year old vines allowed this site to withstand the week of heat in September, recover and click back on to achieve full ripeness. This hang time also allowed for full development of tannin and color making this more brooding and darker hued than its Napa appellation cousin. The addition of the older vine clone 7 from Peterson Family Vineyard adds red fruits and a dusty gravel note to the black walnut tinged Larkmead profile. This has the open early aromatics of the vintage that lead into a generous (are you sensing a theme?) front palate of blackberries, brambly spice, incense and cassis. Right now the fruit of Peterson really dominates the savory of the Larkmead but with age I’m guessing that will reverse. The structure of the Larkmead is what helps the finish fan out and prolong picking up a few toasty barrel notes on the back end.
2022 Rivers-Marie Oakville Terraces Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville—218 cases, 14.8% alcohol, 80% new oak
Oddly enough, the yield at Oakville Terraces in 2022 was pretty good. This was the only vineyard in our Cabernet program to produce above its historical average. This is also the main contributor to the success of the site in 2022. In our experience, bigger crops can withstand heat better. This was by no means a big year (4.5 tons vs. 6.2 as the biggest) but every little bit helps in an extreme year. Savory notes dominate the aromatics of the wine led by green tobacco, iron, toasted rosemary and menthol. The palate has the generosity of the vintage and tends more toward red and black fruits rather than pure black. It starts out very juicy before the layers of fruit kick in running from blueberry to kirsch to blackcurrants and everything in between. Some kind of dry chocolate, espresso roast and scorched earth add complexity to the finish before some youthful tannin comes in denoting sense of place.
2022 Rivers-Marie MBar Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville—265 cases, 14.7% alcohol, 90% new oak
The high-water mark for the vintage, the 2022 MBar Ranch was one of the rare lots for us that suffered zero heat related issues. By the time the first really warm day hit, this vineyard was ready to go. Because of this, you see a very normal for great years dense color saturation, dark garnet/black all the way to the rim. The full, firm but rich, palate that follows comes as no surprise given the complexion of the wine. It is also the only wine in the lineup that features a floral aromatic, landing somewhere in spring flowers territory before moving to black olives and savory herbs. These more delicate features I believe are testament to the intactness of the fruit at harvest. The fruit profile is blue/black focused on cassis and blueberries before again veering toward savory elements of graphite, pencil lead and crushed stone. The tannins here are formidable making this and Oakville Terraces the two wines that will benefit most from cellaring. Given some of the issues with lower structure in 2022, it is refreshing to come across this powerhouse in a vintage where we weren’t sure such wines could exist.
Looking Ahead
It’s been hard not to talk about 2023 too much or too early. The glorious nature of that vintage revealed itself very early in the fermentation process. I’ve never heard so many accolades about a year while still in its infancy. The long, cool (thankfully uneventful) growing season produced fully realized fruit that extracted aroma, color and flavor easily in fermenter. For Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, it was also abundant. Pinot Noir from the west Sonoma Coast looks to be similar in quantity to 2022. It has been a joy to taste through these three varietal line ups since they hit barrel. An even greater joy will come when we get to share these wines with you. The release calendar will be the same as 2024, Pinots in January, Chardonnays in February and Cabernets in July.
Offer and Shipping Details
This offer will remain open through August 2nd quantities permitting. The allocations are not guaranteed but we hope all bottlings last at least a couple days. Everyone receives the same allocation and we try to spread our wine out to as many people as possible. Ground shipping is free for this offer. If you’d like 2 day air please contact Will at will@riversmarie.com for rates.
Thank you for your continued support.
Thomas Rivers Brown and Genevieve Marie Welsh