Thomas River Brown is without question the most sought after consulting winemaker in California. Rivers-Marie is the personal project of Thomas and his wife Genevive where they produce site-driven Cabernet, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Rivers-Marie itself was launched in 2002 when Thomas made a tiny amount of wine from the legendary Summa Vineyard in the Sonoma Coast. Today, Rivers-Marie has grown to include not only a blended Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, but also several single vineyard sites including Occidental Ridge, Willow Creek, Silver Eagle, and two separate bottlings from the Summa vineyard which Thomas and Genevive purchased in 2010. In addition to Pinot, Thomas makes small amounts of Cabernet and Chardonnay as well.

Stylistically, the Rivers-Marie wines are a bit of a departure from the work that Thomas does for his clients in that the wines are less powerful and tend to have more restraint. He tends to pick on the early side when there is good flavor and texture development and uses native yeasts and a little bit of whole cluster to give complexity.    Aging occurs mostly in used barrels – from no new wood in the Sonoma Coast wines, to between 10 and 30% in the single-vineyards Chards, Pinots and Cabernets depending on vintage and parcel.