I am not a Ridge expert by any means. I can count the number of times I have tasted their wines on one hand. Anyway…
I stumbled on a CellarTracker note for the 2005 vintage Ridge“Oltranti” wine. This was not a wine I had ever heard of or read about in the past. The vineyard source, according to the winery website, was Mazzoni Vineyard (predominantly younger vine grapes):
I enjoy perusing CT, Gang of Pour, etc, for ATP, short-term bottlings, and such from this internationally acclaimed winery.
I recall from a Wine & Spirits article that Mr Paul Draper stated that Ridge had worked with fruit from over 100 vineyards over the years. Here on the forum, I typically encounter tasting notes on the “regular” releases, red and white.
What one-offs or unusual bottlings have you tried from Ridge in the past?
1971 Ridge Eisele is one of the California legends!
I’ll piggyback and ask about a wine I just picked up. It’s the 1982 William Short Vineyard. I think it’s technically a part of the Monte Bello Vineyard now, but could be totally mistaken and would love to know if anyone knows the story. Thanks in advance.
Ridge has made any number of one-offs over the yrs. It’s because they often use a different block name
from vnyds they’ve worked w/ over the yrs.
They made a PetiteSirah Essence LyttonSprings once (I believe) that they never repeated.
Tom
The William Short is indeed Monte Bello fruit. It was a one off as far as I know and honored William Short who IIRC replanted some (all?) of Monte Bello in the 40’s/50’s? The wine was very approachable young but I didn’t think it had the backbone to be a long ager. Please post a note when taste it. Maybe Tom Hill, Wes Barton or Allen Bree will chime in-they know Ridge.
So many rare bottlings: Monte Bello Hollywood, Pagani Alicante, Contra Costa Mataro and Zin, Maple Zin, Monte Rosso Zin, Lytton Vio, Rose…I could go on.
The 1982 Ridge William Short Cabernet was produced from the original blocks planted by William Short in 1949. It was from these parcels, that all the early Monte Bellos were produced. As new plantings took hold, the wine from the Short plantings was supplemented with the wine from the young vines. In 1982, Paul decided to make a wine exclusively from these old vines, to honor 20 years of Ridge.
Thank you Sean & Ryan. I bought a parcel of older Ridge bottles and thus far have opened a 75 York Creek Cabernet (corked, doh!) and a 1981 Paso Robles Zinfandel (very pretty, got better as it opened). These came from a very cold cellar, so I am hopeful that the William Short has had the stuffing to last. I’ll definitely post when I open it.
I was on the Ridge ATP program for a few years to get their rare and unusual bottles. Decided my favorites were their more mainstream wines - Monte Bello, Estate Cab, Geyserville and Lytton Springs. Easier to find also.
I agree with this and after many years of being in the ATP program, I quit for this very reason. But then with my ATP wines gone and just LS and Geezer and a sh*tload of ancient PS in my cellar, it occurred to me that even the “lesser” ATP wines are a good value and they break up the sameness of pulling out a LS or a Geezer or hard-as-nails-and-kissing-a-frog Pet out again and again. So I re-joined.
They’ve tried a lot of vineyards over the years. A lot of the one-offs are ones they made the call not to stick with.
They often put out two tiers from a vineyard, where the 2nd tier is a lower classification, such as “Dusi” and “Paso Robles”. (And an even lower tier, “Coast Range”, for young vines and such. “Three Valleys” seems to have replaced that.) And yes, various one-off single block wines.
Beatty Ranch was part of their Cabernet Program (CP) and the source of their Howell Mountain wines.
1983 Monte Bello is not particularly rare, other than it’s almost 35 years old. The wine was recalled and purchasers had the option of returning their bottles of Monte Bello in return for bottles of the exact same wine labeled Santa Cruz Mountains. The exchange rate was 1 MB for 2 SCM. I had purchased a case and some mags of the '83 Monte Bello, and exchanged most of them, keeping a few bottles with the MB label just for fun. I know several others who did the same.
You can occasionally run across both bottlings at auction, and they sell for a fraction of the price of many other MBs.
I think other declassified Monte Bellos, such as the 1979, are much scarcer than the 1983. Most of the 1979 was also bottled as Santa Cruz Mountains, and I don’t think nearly as many bottles labeled Monte Bello made it into distribution as occurred in 1983. The very late released (early 2000s) 1979 Cabernet Sauvignon Essence is from Monte Bello grapes, but it’s not labeled MB.