1. Chardonnay Monte Bello, 14.5% ABV, bottled 3/15: light golden straw color; Aromas of pear, apricot, yuzu citrus, wet stone, salted toffee, toasted brioche, flinty-wet stone minerality; Surprisingly, still youthful, fresh, vibrant, firmly acidic, oily textures, bitterness/pithy grapefruit finish, and a persistent finish with a classic MB mineral aftertaste. I’ve recently had both 2012 and 2014MB chards, and both are much more evolved than 2013. Taste again sometime 2027-2029, in line with my recommended drinking window noted on the back label.
2. Cabernet Sauvignon Estate, 13.8% ABV, bottled 8/15 (75%CS, 20%MR, 3%PV, 2%CF): Deep ruby/garnet color; Red currant, bramble, sage, dried tobacco, olive, roasted vegetables, meaty-ferric rusticity to the nose. On the mouth it starts of showing sweet dried red berry fruit, mountain briar, savory herbs, elegantly resolved tannins, cool-climate herbaciousness, dusty and drying tannins in the back. There is a slight hint of herbal dill-oaky character in the final taste. This wine is showing expected development. I said drink over the next decade when I wrote the label in 2015. That feels about right, although it has staying power and not at all showing that its faded. It’s just much softer on the palate and the fruit is turning more towards dried berry.
3. Merlot Estate, 13.8% ABV, bottled 8/15 (100% Merlot): Dark purple color, inky and deep-not showing any garnet/bricking; This wine shows intense mountain bramble and stone fruits-black cherries. What a real surprise and delight to find in my cellar, knowing I have 11 more bottles. It’s a serious merlot with an incredible deep and seductive nose, that matches with equal intensity on the mouth. It’s plush, voluptuous, layered, shows no development. It’s an opulent merlot packed with great tannin structure, intense fruit to match, and showing incredible minerality. It’s very much right-bank Pomerol in style. It’s a shame we declassified so much from the Monte Bello (only 5% merlot included.)
4. Cabernet Sauvignon, Torre Vineyard, 13.2% ABV, bottled 8/15: Crimson/purple-slight garnet-brick hue at the rim. This wine’s aromas are unreal, highly scented sweet dried cranberries, currant, dried cherries, spice box of nutmeg and clove, chutney, and caramelized sugar of sweet oak. High-toned red fruit enters on the mouth, showing a mix of pomegranate, cranberry, and red licorice. The acidity is bracing, sharp and intense, it magnifies the red fruit and tannins making the wine a bit tightly wound and still unresolved. It really reminds me of some of the flavors of 1968 Monte Bello and/or some of those early vintage Ruby Cabernets. This is a wine made to age forever. The color is deep, but the bricking/garnet hue threw me. I think that’s more of an effect of low pH than actual anthocyanin degradation from oxidation. Low pH, high acid wines naturally have a color shift towards red, away from crimson/purple. I mentioned drinking enjoyment at a 10-15 year period on the back label. I think its safe to say this can be extended, probably doubled.
5. Historic Vines, Monte Bello, 12.6% ABV, bottled 8/15: Crimson/ruby color, slight brick hue. A nose that is distinctly Monte Bello-mountain bramble fruit, dried red berries, iodine, leather, cedar, sandalwood, cinnamon, forest floor, wet stone. Classically, Monte Bello on the mouth, elegant tannins, leathery, polished/resolved texture, licorice, fennel, crushed rock, and an earthy finish. This is a highly complex wine that I’ve had to taste over and over for the past few days as it revealed more layers. This comes from the oldest surviving vineyard block on Monte Bello, planted by William Short in 1949. This was the sole source of Monte Bello fruit until mid-70’s when Ridge’s younger vines began bearing fruit. As cabernet ages, it begins to struggle with vine disease. If eutypa die-back doesn’t kill the vine, the many leaf roll viruses slowly take its toll on the vine health through stunting photosynthesis. It’s a block with tremendous history and significance to Ridge, but it struggled to ripen grapes almost every single year. 2013 was an exceptional vintage, being a drought year and warm. This condition aided the vines in reaching ideal ripeness. It was picked, fermented, and clearly showing some excellent quality in the fermentor. At time of assemblage, it was voted to include in the blend, but then we decided it was deserving of being bottled separately to celebrate the history as being one of three of the oldest surviving cabernet vineyards still in commercial wine production in CA, maybe the world. In 2013, these vines were 65 years old, which is ancient for Cabernet. Normally, these vines get ripped out and replanted every 30 years, or in Napa every 10-20 years. I love that this wine has 12.6% alcohol and shows such excellent aroma and flavors. I do hope these vines are still in the ground. Every year there is a block performance review. Where yield declines and quality falls, those blocks are first worked over by viticulture to try and improve quality. If after a few years and no signs of improvement, the blocks get slated to be ripped out an land fallowed at least 7 years. The historic vines are four prime acres of some of the best terroir of Monte Bello. As healthy young vines, the expected tonnage would be about 9-11 tons based on a higher planting density. The old vines in 2013, only produced 2.4 tons and made 6 barrels of glorious wine. As long as the finance department had no say in ripping these vines, they should be safe (at least they were when I visited the Tasting Room in July 2021 for my birthday.)
6. Steep Terraces, Monte Bello, 12.7% ABV, bottled 8/15: opaque, inky purple color; Intense blackberry and cassis fruit aromas, cola, fennel, cedar, bay-laurel, and some hints of sweet oak and spices. Mixed red and black berry fruits on entry, wet stone mineral, firm acidity, chalky tannins, youthful, showing some leathery earthiness, black olive, tobacco, and a very long finish with some grainy unresolved tannins. This wine needs much more time. I won’t think about opening another bottle until 2033. Steep Terrace is an aptly named block in the middle vineyard. It’s extremely steep and a south facing semi-circle amphitheater shaped bowl. I’ve always loved the wine from this parcel. There was one other time this was bottled separately, 1993 Steep Terrace/ Horseshoe was the label. There were other times it was declassified and not bottled due to lack of intensity. 2004 late rains hit and wiped out quality. I can’t recall any other vintages that it didn’t make the MB selection. It is regarded as one of the core lots that are the heart of every Monte Bello vintage. It was planted in 1972 by the founding families of Ridge. Who knows the source of planting material. You’d think it would be a selection from within the existing vines, but I doubt that was done. The terraces are seriously eroded at this point and are 12’ wide following the contour lines. The block has many missing vines where disease, gopher, tractor took the life of a vine. It’s still producing impressive quality and it only ever needs some TLC, bit of compost, and weeding to keep the vines alive. Maybe by now missers have been replanted to shore up production on that incredible part of Monte Bello vineyard.
7. Ridge Monte Bello, 13.6% ABV, Bottled 5/15 (80%CS, 8%PV, 7%CF, and 5%MR): Deep crimson purple, slight brick hue. An incredible nose of cassis, blackberries, licorice-fennel, juniper, cedar, caramel sweet oak, lavender floral, and exotic oak spices. The palate is drenched in mouth-filling ripe dark mountain berry fruit. There’s a plushness to the body, velvety tannins, notable crushed rock/wet concrete minerality, black licorice, violets, and chalky young tannins. This is one multi-dimensional wine with so many layers. I’ve tasted, re-tasted many times over the last several days. (In fact, I’m tasting it again right now as I type this.) This simply is one of the great vintages of Monte Bello and truly classic. I’ve had the chance to taste every vintage made, including the '79 (unofficially released) and this is easily in the top 5 vintages of all time. I’d say 1968, 1970, 1974, and 1985 are in this camp of super vintages of Monte Bello. Clearly there are many more vintages deserving to be in this camp, many that I’ve been part of producing, but I’ve had to delineate based on my all time favorite wine experiences with Monte Bello and that is with these truly special vintages, that now include the 2013. As with every vintage, the success comes from everything coming together-from the weather conditions, picking decisions, handling of the fruit in the winery, rigorous tasting of the fermentors, and careful assemblage. There is a funny story here about the assemblage. We had just wrapped up the vintage, barreled everything down, saw the wines through their barrel malolactics and basically let them go to sleep around December 2013. Paul got a request for a barrel sample from Robert Parker. He hadn’t reviewed Ridge in a number of years and he had some pressure to put together a review. We had more or less stopped participating in submitting samples as it was clear there was no point, there was no upside and we were not Napa and making wine in that ultra-style. Alas, Paul came to me and asked what I thought of the vintage and if I could throw something together of what looked like the best lots of the vintage. Knowing these wines intimately from the time as grapes on vines, through fermenting, an now in barrel, I put together a blend and that was sent off along with many other wines Parker had requested. (Turned out RP loved the 2013 MB.) As usual the assemblage was done in early February of 2014. I pulled all the potential lots out of the cellar for our blind tasting. Going through everything and rigorously selecting the wines as a team, voting for consensus, we narrowed everything down to the absolute best of the best. When I looked at the list of everything we selected it was exactly the same list of wines as what I had prepared for Robert Parker back in December. I guess the story here is when you know its good, you know and it take years and years of experience to get to know the vineyard and its personality and what can blend together and build on synergy. This 2013 is superb in every regard. I would not be in any hurry to consume the remaining bottles in my cellar. I noted that this wine will reach optimal drinking in 15 years, then hold 20 more. It’s easily going to hit those target drinking years. That makes me 80 in 2050. That’s very doable. I’ll be around, I just got to be careful about not burning through the remaining bottles too quickly.
EB