Figured you might hold a party. 
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Glad to have helped enable on those 2013 MB’s, Todd!
Trip over him maybe
If Alfert tries the bike ride up Ventoux he might get to see him.
Cesar Perrin must have been influenced by Ridge when he came to work for us during a harvest. He would have fallen in love with American oak, tasting the barrels and seeing how well the rhone varieties worked in carefully selected american oak barrels. A winemaker friend of mine, from Aix-en-Provence also came to work with Paul and I in 1996 vintage. He brought american oak to his winery, too. When carefully selected, those american oak barrels, can add such excellent flavors to a wine. It’s not always dill and coconut. Those are usually AO barrels where the oak came from fast growing trees, seasoned improperly, and not coopered using steam bending. I don’t like those flavors either.
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“Ride”
yeah I don’t think the caricaturing of American oak is really helpful here given the success Ridge has had with it over the years
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Saturday night, I had a 2011 Ridge Klein. I thought it was delightful. Not as complex as the MB and not as long a finish, but beautiful fruit and a real crowd pleaser that I enjoyed a lot. I had this wine young at the winery and don’t remember whether I could taste new oak a lot then, but I certainly did not really single it out Saturday night. Any new oak in the wine had integrated in by now.
According to CellarTracker, I paid about $57 for this at the winery, including tax. Great value for that price - I have not had the 2011 Ridge SCM Cabernet, but I thought the Klein was better than other vintages I have had of that wine for not much more money.