Two Sucky Summas from '06

WINE TALK
1

I hate to report on disappointments, but when they are relatively expensive and not just confined to a single bottle I do get annoyed.
Over the last few years I had 3 bottles of each of the '06 Littorai, Summa, PN and '06 Rivers-Marie, Old Summa, PN. Not a single bottle has been memorable except in its lack of being anything other than a moderately excellent wine deserving around 88 points. And both of these wines are supposed to be the top wines of these guys portfolios? I’m not even sure that they were better than any of the other wines they made in '06. Certainly R-M made nice Sonoma Coast and Willow Creek bottlings that I drank with pleasure when they were infants.
Maybe I should have aged them longer? Except, my impression is that for both wines it has been a downhill slope with both getting worse with age.
[swearing.gif] [swearing.gif] [swearing.gif]

2

Hummm … disappointing. I’m a holder of both of these (although Littorai no longer takes Summa fruit).

3

Hope you have better luck than me, but keep in mind that I’m only talking about 2006.

4

I was generally disappointed in the R-M 06 offerings. I thought they were a bit shrill and disjointed. That said, 07-09 have been much better, IMHO.

5

+11

6

Thanks for the notes, Peter. A couple of “sacred cow” producers…

7

I’ve had both of these in the past year and found them underwhelming. Generally a soft vintage imho.

8

Incredibly hot summer. Has not been one close to that hot since, thank God.

9

Corey, I think 2006 was an excellent year for pinot noir, judging by how my favorite producers did compared to other vintages. Sonoma Coast is not my favorite appellation, but for example, I think Alesia pinots are better is '06 than '05. But as always, such generalizations depend upon which wines have been tasted as well as personal preferences. Just my $0.02.

10

There is always exceptions, and I’d say the alesia bottlings fall into this category. Firstly the fruit sourcing, from Falstaff, Chileno, and Sonaterra, are all very cool sites. Obviously there was some high quality wines produced, and Anderson valley actually produced pretty well in general. But I would say overall, it was a soft year for Sonoma county, with quality being spotty.

11

Interesting. When I think of 06 Pinot Noir world-wide, I don’t hold it in high esteem. But reviewing my notes of the Rhys wines, I loved them. That said, I have been a bit bored with a lot of Cali 06.

Jason

12

Yeh, in my experience it was a hit or miss vintage. Two hits I can recall were the Mount Eden Estate PN, and the Littorai Roman PN.

13

I had the '06 RM Summa 2 weeks ago and thought it was showing great. This was not the OV. Shared at the restaurant with the GM/wine buyer, a friend, and he loved it.

14

'06 littorai summa didn’t do it for me, but the haven and hirsch have been delightful.

15

I had the opposite experience with 06 Pinots. I hated them on release. So many of them seemed round and lacking acid. Within a year or two I noticed many of them were balancing out and turning up pretty nice. Sort of the opposite of what happened with the vaunted 05’s. I wouldn’t say the 06’s are consistently great across producers but I think its a strong vintage. As good as 05.

According to CT I’ve enjoyed almost all the 2006 RM’s I’ve had. My notes on the Occidentals indicate I’ve found those fat and fruit forward but the rest have been good.

16

My one bottle of Littorai Summary '06 was phenomenal, utter magic. I’ve had very few Cali Pinots as good since.

17

My take is that for the producers I like: '05 was much much better than '06. But I agree that '05 was hyped early on.
In general I’d say that 2006 is not my favorite year for CA wines regardless of grape or region. Although a few cabs do seem to be drinking nicely.

18

I have had two bottles of '06 Littorai Summa. One of them was as Benjamin describes above. Utterly spellbinding. The other one, while I liked it better than Peter seemed to like any of the ones he tried, was more pedestrian.

“Sacred cow” Lewis? Sure, Littorai is probably my favorite CA pinot producer, but nevertheless I think I can still call 'em as I see 'em.

19

+1

TTT

20

Terrific 2003 Summa last night from Brogan Cellars. Tons of spice and no heat, no cola.