Summa Vineyards Sold to Thomas Rivers Brown and Genevieve Marie Welsh

As if Thomas Rivers Brown is not busy enough making wine, and being named Food and Wine's 2010 Winemaker of the Year, and his wife Genevieve Marie Welsh are now the proud owners of Summa Vineyards, which has been a staple in providing grapes to their own wine label, Rivers-Marie.

A quick story about Rivers-Marie, is the simple fact that it was started when Scott Zeller, the former owner of Summa Vineyard was talking with Thomas Rivers Brown, and out of nowhere he had asked him if he was interested in buying some fruit from the vineyard. He thought to himself that he would be insane not to take it, and Rivers-Marie was born.

One of the biggest questions now is what is going to happen with grapes sold from this vineyard now that it is going to change hands. Will less grapes be sold? Will Rivers-Marie be making more wine from these vines and from the old vines on the property? At this point, it is impossible to say, but I look forward to seeing how this all unfolds.

Since 2006, it looks as though Rivers-Marie is one of the few producers creating wine from this vineyard. In the 1980's and 1990's, Williams Selyem made wine from this vineyard, and in the late '90's and 2000 Robert Mueller also produced a pinot from this vineyard.

During the 2002 vintage, Rivers-Marie started producing wines from here, along with Littorai and Brogan Cellars. Brogan Cellars stopped sourcing grapes from here after the 2005 vintage, but Littorai has continued to source fruit from here. I will be curious to see what will happen now, and if other wineries will have the chance to source fruit from here as well. I guess there are only two people that can answer that question at the moment, so we'll just have to wait and see.

But even so, congratulations to TRB for yet another great accomplishment! Keep up the great work, and keep the amazing wines coming! Cheers! -F. Scott