Wines: $875 · Lunch: $215
I have always thought California’s finest wines have come not from Napa, but from Santa Cruz . The region has always been difficult to navigate—and easy to overlook—but its best wines can be extraordinary.
My interest began with Ridge and deepened through older Santa Cruz wines. In 2001, a 1970 Gemello, one of my house wines, replaced a broken Mondavi Reserve at a twenty-fifth-anniversary recreation of the Judgment of Paris. It received 15 of 16 first-place votes, ahead of Pétrus, Lafite, and Latour. That tasting began my expensive obsession with finding old Gemello and other great Santa Cruz Mountain wines.
Our other producer is Martin Ray, one of California’s early pioneers. Beginning in the 1930s, Ray believed California could produce wines capable of aging alongside Europe’s great wines. Because his wines came from a variety of vineyards, vintage and site are especially important. He was right: the wines are reportedly superb—and essentially unobtainable. I think this tasting is unique, and I doubt whether it can ever be replicated.
The wines span the 1960s through the 1990s.
MARTIN RAY
Chardonnay
1993
Cabernet Sauvignon
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1976
1979
1980
GEMELLO CABERNET
1968 — Santa Cruz
1968 — Santa Clara
1970 — 35th Anniversary, Santa Cruz
1974 — Santa Cruz
1975 — Santa Cruz
1976 — Santa Cruz