History
Steve Young planted the original two acres in 1979 on a ridgetop off Taylor Lane, six miles inland from the Pacific. Scott and Joan Zellar bought the property in 1982 and farmed it for nearly thirty years. Sea Ridge Winery made the first wines from it in the late 1980s, and Williams Selyem took over from 1988 to 1997; the 1991 Williams Selyem Summa Vineyard Pinot Noir, released at a hundred dollars, was the first California Pinot Noir to sell at that price. After Williams Selyem was sold the fruit went to Mueller, Brogan Cellars and Littorai. Thomas Rivers Brown made his first Rivers-Marie Summa in 2002 when the Zellars offered him grapes, and bought the vineyard outright in September 2010.
The Site
A high, wind-exposed ridge in the hills above Occidental, on Goldridge ground, six miles from the ocean. Yields are small in most years and the site's reputation rests on that severity.
Vines and Blocks
The Old Vines block survives from the original planting, which Rivers-Marie dates to 1978, and is bottled separately as Summa Old Vines. Burt Williams, who made the wine through the 1990s, believed the original material to be a Swan selection. Since 2015 Brown has been replacing individual failed vines a handful a year with a Calera selection rather than replanting the block.
The Wines
Rivers-Marie has been the exclusive producer since 2010, bottling both the Summa Vineyard Pinot Noir and the smaller Old Vines cuvee.