Also want to throw in there that Will at RM is a awesome guy. Great person to have on the front end-and he probably does a lot on the back end too. Good wine and good people = purchase.
Very kind offer, thanks Mike. I’m super low on RM but see if I have anything of equal value that interests you and shoot me a PM. My username on CT is the same as it is here.
And thanks for the summary Will - sounds like the Corona is ~ a 4yr/hour wine.
Depends on how you like them. For me, these take time or a lot of air. I drink some young, but still have not had one I did not think would benefit from ageing.
I just tasted an 09 Panek over dinner. Really outstanding depth and length. Drinking great now.
I’ll be in on some of the '13 cabs.m
I will be a first time RM buyer, and can really only afford to pick up 3 bottles total. For those of you who have tasted in previous vintages, what combination would you recommend (of the cabs)? Wish I could get more, but this is quite a bit higher than my normal price range. Thanks for your input.
I am a first time buyer, but my opinion is you have to pick up at least one of the Calistoga’s as long as the money allows and it is included in your offer. I do not think the Lore offers enough value. Can’t speak about the others.
I am curious about the aging windows being discussed in this thread, so this week I popped a 12 Panek, drank half the bottle that night and recorked the other half in the cellar overnight. I would generally use the Coravin or pour into a half bottle to minimize oxygen, but thought this would be a good experiment to see how the wine showed 24 hours later with oxygen contact.
The wine was great the first night, clearly young and tannic but delicious. The second night it had faded a good deal, still fairly enjoyable but nowhere near the same intensity. Makes me think these are wines to consume in the first 5 years, maybe up to 10. I’d be scared to cellar them any longer though.
Thoughts?
Panek
Calistoga
Lore
I am a long time SVD buyer, and will purchase the new Lore on blind faith.
I had the 2007 Napa a few months ago and it still seemed youthful. I rarely open the SVDs…for my palate even the 2011 Panek seems way too young. Sitting on a mag each of the 2009 SVD Cabs and can’t imagine touching either one for at least another 10 years. Ymmv.
One more thing, the 2008 Napa has been amazing over the past 6 months or so.
I have had similar day 2 experiences with these wines, though I haven’t tasted the Corona, which seems to be made of more tannic stuff. I enjoy them young, and don’t own enough (yet) to risk aging some of them as an experiment.
Wendouree is better.
Have been on the list since 2003. Buy everything. Never disappointed.
Prices are creeping up but are still well below other cabs TRB makes for others.
This will post to the website later today, here is a preview tomorrow’s mailer w/ TN’s
The Vintage
The best years are always the ones you have the most trouble remembering. A near perfect season has produced the best set of Cabernets we have ever produced for Rivers-Marie and all of our clients. The Chardonnays are also at this level due to some of the cleanest fruit and ferments we have seen. As much as people will focus on Cabs as the harbinger of quality in 2013, the Chardonnays may actually achieve greater heights. They possess great palate intensity without being weighty, balanced by laser like acidity and incredibly well defined aromas and flavors. These attributes also carry over into the Cabernets. Whenever you hear big vintage, the fear is that the fruit dominates everything. In 2013, all components of the wines are amplified which preserves the balance. The elevated levels of acid and tannin cut into the fruit and color without lightening the experience. We have dedicated most of our energy the last few years in refining our Cabernet sourcing and we finally see all the dividends of that effort with the 2013s.
The 2013s and Allocations
Like the Pinot release, this offer features a two-mixed case maximum allocation. We were fortunate to have a year that combined great quality with solid quantity so not sure right now if it’s something we will be able to continue in the future. I have a feeling this combined Chardonnay/Cabernet release will continue given the lack of appropriate shipping months for a third, varietal specific mailer. In the past Panek has always disappeared first but I have a feeling the Lore and Calistoga bottlings will go quickly given newness, vineyard source and critical success. We do our best to add new mailing list customers and allocate appropriately to allow the wines to last at least a week after the release opens. We’re not the first to say it but allocating wine is a very inexact science.
The Wines
2013 Rivers-Marie Joy Road Vineyard Chardonnay Sonoma Coast —160 cases, 13.8% alcohol, 20% new oak
The Chardonnay program for us continues to expand. We started with this small piece owned by Terry Adams in 2012 and we wanted a year to work with it before breaking it out on its own. This wine has more cut then any wine we have ever released. Green/gold in color with a super effusive nose, the fruit here is far more citrus than tropical. The palate is piercing with notes of cut hay, white chocolate, lychee and lime zest. This one may take a little while to come around but the laser focus and freshness of the palate makes it intriguing now.
2013 Rivers-Marie B. Thieriot Vineyard Chardonnay Sonoma Coast —280 cases, 14.2% alcohol, 30% new oak
This is a little more golden than its Joy Road sibling but features the same purity of flavor and focus. One of the trademarks of this vineyard we’ve discovered through the years is its ability to produce weighty wines that aren’t heavy. We make the same comment about the Summa Old Vines Pinot Noir offering every year and so we partly attribute this in the Thieriot to vine age as well. Though this would never be confused with a more heavy style of California Chardonnay, it is a bit more classic in character than the Joy Road bottling. This is more about generosity and features elements of brioche, hazelnuts, smoke and marzipan complemented by a bit of citrus zest. This is already a broad, deep wine but I imagine it will only continue to add dimension as it ages. This is one of those wines you debate selling wondering if you’d be better served to hoard and drink it all yourself.
2013 Rivers-Marie Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley—250 cases, 14.2% alcohol, 50% new oak
This is made up of the clone 4 block from Panek, our small portion of Pellet Vineyard in St. Helena and two blocks from Lore that didn’t make the vineyard designate cut. It’s the Lore in the wine that gives it weight and a little more of a purple-fruited character than years past. The valley floor and hillside characteristics are just beginning to knit together in this wine as it is a bit more structure than fruit right now. The St. Helena component contributes a higher-toned fruit quality with a nice minty, varietally correct undertone. Oakville adds power in the form of blackberry, iron, crushed rock and walnut skin. We actually had a hard time figuring out what to declassify from this vintage making for a very strong Napa bottling in 2013.
2013 Rivers-Marie Panek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena —400 cases, 14.4% alcohol, 70% new oak
Not surprisingly this has recovered the quickest from bottling. The generosity of the site is always there but we think the Panek wines are more complete in structured vintages like 2009 and this edition certainly bears that out. With 2010-2012 we saw a wine balanced solely by acidity but with the addition of some firm tannin, the wine feels more substantial and certainly offers a larger drinking window. There’s a small herbal note that contributes more complexity and a little pomegranate to add a higher-toned fruit quality. The tannins are a little dusty which adds texture and density. This is the most complex Panek out of the gate and also potentially the most long-lived. Cool blue fruits and a little mint/wintergreen help round out the finish.
2013 Rivers-Marie Corona Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville —245 cases, 14.3% alcohol, 75% new oak
This once again is the most structured wine in the lineup. If there was a concern about the vintage as wines went to barrel in the fall of 2013, it was how well did we manage tannin in our hillside sites. We knew it was a structured vintage from the beginning so quantity of tannin wasn’t the question it was more a question of quality. The heat of the year further complicated the issue of determining true ripeness. Knowing if the right pick decision had been made fleshes out over time. Tasting this wine now, the one characteristic of it that speaks to the quality of the tannin is whether the grip interrupts the finish. In this case it doesn’t hopefully due to us knowing what we are doing but also due to the generosity of fruit in 2013. This is an effusive version of Corona with an almost jammy black fruit profile that is complemented by the usual savory elements of smoke, iron, creosote and black olives. Generosity here certainly doesn’t equal approachable and I would recommend sitting on this wine for a few years before cracking the first one.
2013 Rivers-Marie Calistoga Cabernet Sauvignon —150 cases, 14.3% alcohol, 67% new oak
Though 2012 and 2013 aren’t that far apart in quality, we feel this is a big step up from its previous edition. Part of it is having an additional year of experience with the vineyard and part of it is just how well this site performed in this vintage. This is our one wine with a potential perfect Parker score hanging in the balance and I can see why now tasting it two months removed from bottling. It’s the most exotic of the lineup with a very lifted aromatic and an ethereal feel to the palate that has both a firm density and a lightness from the super fine grained tannin. This is like a more accessible version of Corona with a nice blend of fruit and savory but a lot more generosity owing to its location. The aromatic is almost more Bordeaux like with an emphasis on walnut skins, creosote and graphite but the fruit profile is very Californian with a black-fruited profile that comes as much from the vintage as the site.
2013 Rivers-Marie Lore Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville—250 cases, 14.3% alcohol, 80% new oak
This is the most exciting new source for Rivers-Marie in a long time. Marc and Carolyn Lore’s 2-acre vineyard sits in arguably the most prestigious Cabernet neighborhood in Napa Valley. We are fortunate to now be leasing this site for Rivers-Marie which not only gains us access to such a great spot but also allows us to completely control the farming. This is such a substantial wine it’s almost more about texture than flavor. It’s super broad and deep and covers and saturates the palate in a very complete way. There’s a crystalline minerality to the wine that gives it further density but also gives it defined dimension and focus. As Antonio Galloni noted in Vinous Media, he believes this is one of the best Cabernets I’ve ever made all clients included. We’d be happy to put this up against anything coming out of Napa in the 2013 vintage.
Looking Ahead
The story for the immediate future is quantity. For 2014 Pinot we are down a third from where we were with 2012, for Chardonnay we are down 50%. We may not be able to offer the two mixed case allocation we’ve had the two previous vintages. The other word of warning is after 10 years, the price of the Sonoma Coast Pinot will finally have to increase. Capturing a slightly bigger margin will allow us to offer a bit more to the mailing list but the price will have to be considerably higher to help this bottling continue to pencil. Right now the new target price is in the low 30s for both Sonoma Coast appellation bottlings. The good news is 2014 Pinot looks even better than 2012 or 2013. There’s more focus and delineation in the wines and more of the potential goodness of the raw material feels realized in the finished wines. 2014 Chardonnay and Cabernet I’d say aren’t quite as good as 2013 but that’s a pretty lofty ring to grab at every year. I’d put both varietals a bit above 2012 though, being built like slightly less concentrated 2013s.
Offer and Shipping Details
This offer will remain open through August 11th quantities permitting. The allocations are not guaranteed but we hope they last for at least a week. Everyone for this release receives the same allocation and we try to spread our wine out to as many people as possible. On a different note, our e-commerce provider has notified us that they have upgraded their security features to further safeguard against security breaches. They have warned us that customers using older browsers may see error messages when they click on the link to the store in the mailer. Message could be Connection Failure or This webpage is not available or for Chrome users ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED. Upgrading your browser, using a different browser or trying on your mobile device may be a way around this. We are hoping it doesn’t affect many people. If you can’t get around it, please feel to reach out. Ground shipping is free for this offer. If you’d like 2 day air please contact Will at will@riversmarie.com for rates. You can also reach out to Will with magnum requests.
Thank you for your continued support.
Thomas Rivers Brown and Genevieve Marie Welsh
Never saw the email on this one. Bummer. Must be sold out because I just logged on and got “Sorry folks, parks closed” message.
Tomorrow! And thanks for the info will!
Free wine tomorrow
What to choose… ahhh.
Picked up 8 bottles. I am so glad i got on and ordered. Hopefully next year i get onto the first wave.
I’m pretty sure this is the first wave ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I’m not seeing it as open.