anyone popping any 19s or 21s early to compare?
21s will be released sometime over the next month or two
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Thank you @ToddFrench for opening one and sharing a taste.
I have experience opening MB way too early. It was one of the first wines I could have sent to my Brave Little State back in the 90’s. This was before all the Dormant Commerce clause cases allowing direct shipemnts. (I would fill out a form, send it to the VT DLC, and they would return it to me stamped. I would mail it to Ridge and they would include it in the shipment.)
And I opened many of the early 1990 wines very early on. Hey this was before WB and I was still learning.
A young MB is concentrated and dense. Certainly high in tannins but always showed depth. And if you don’t mind tannins, still enjoyable.
The 2020 was not. I found a medicinal iodine note to it. And a short finish.
Having had some 2008 Anderson Valley pinots (Anthill Farms anyone?) I have had experience with smoke taint. I didn’t find those traits in the 2020 MB.
The wine was just OK. Not bad but not particulalry intereting or inviting.
Our group shared a 19 shortly after release, and it was excellent.
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Thanks for sharing this Todd. We certainly shared lots of thoughts about Ridge and 2020 last night. I’m glad Larry was able to add some technical knowledge to the discussion and was also glad/sad that his guess was the same as mine in terms of the winery’s approach to the vintage.
The Monte Bello was certainly in line with some of my struggles with some of the standard ATP offerings from that vintage. Where they have either lacked some punch or have been strangely somewhat sullen where young Zin blends are never that way when I pop them. The MB just lacked the sort of depth you expect from a wine of that stature. There was certainly something going on at the finish that is out of line with a great, focused wine. I got some of that grittiness people more experience tasting smoke taint have called out as a common quality. I just can’t imagine them presenting this as representative of the great wine that Monte Bello is supposed to represent. That said, out of context its a solid wine. I can see a lot of people being happy drinking that if not known as Monte Bello in name and price.
Leaving analysis and rants aside, Ridge’s approach to 2020 is always going to feel like a turn where they went profit first rather than product.
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Smoke taint is any or all of dozens of compounds that can make it into grape tissue via smoke. Lots of things burn. The crest of the Montebello ridge is directly across from the Santa Cruz Mountains ridgeline. You can see Rhys from Ridge. All of those vineyards - Rhys’ Alpine, Horseshoe, Skyline, the Fogarty estate, Mindego Ridge - where all written off. Ridge wrote off the clearly effected blocks. They then tested for the smoke taint compound you are familiar with (and presumably others) and discarded those lots. So, of course you didn’t experience the smoke taint you got in those '08s. They thought they covered their bases. The wine did not taste mediocre at their Spring Release event last year, either. But, the wine is smoke tainted.
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I did taste the wine that @ToddFrench graciously brought to Falltacular - and it’s truly difficult to assess a single bottle without having experience tasting young versions of this wine in the past. As others who tasted it stated, they’d have no problem enjoying a glass of this if someone provided it for them - but knowing the bottle was north of $175, I would have expected more. It lacked structure - something I would expect a young Monte Bello to have, and it’s finish was clipped and slightly acrid.
The fact that Ridge is willing to take back bottles that their customers are dissatisfied with speaks volumes to their commitment to customer service, at least in this case.
Cheers
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had a bottle a friend shared and it was clearly tainted. he sent back the rest
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No skin in the game here. Hypothetically speaking if someone was to hold and try a ‘20 in 10-15yrs and was dissatisfied with it, would they take the rest of the bottles back? Or is the offer to take them back only in the near-term?
Sounds like the return rate is pretty high, which cant be good for them. Glad they are taking them back, but seems releasing a ‘20 wasnt the right decision.
From a customer perspective, does this make you question Ridge? Or is the fact that they will take them back, make you feel you have been made ‘whole’ in this situation?
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@larry_schaffer suggested I try some after letting it sit a few days…after confirming Ridge doesn’t need it back to refund me for my allocation (just the full bottles) I tried it tonight, 3 days later.
It’s markedly better, really shows the Monte Bello fruit profile and complexity. Finish is still clipped, less ‘sour’, but not as obvious as it was on Saturday. Bit of a chalky note comes through as well. If it’s flawed, it’s barely flawed, based on this…but again, I don’t have experience with young Monte Bello to know what the finish is SUPPOSED to be like.
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Rudy Kurniawan is finding a new market.
First of all, thanks much for sacrificing the bottle. Glad to hear Ridge is accommodating.
I too have limited experience with young Monte Bello. The closest comparison for me would be tasting the 2019 in Nov 2022. My (somewhat crappy) notes from back then: “expressive nose, subtle oak, clove and other spice; supreme density and elegance on the palate, medium plus body, acidity, alcohol. Pronounced oak, not overwhelming, chalky tannins”.
Not too far off from your update today actually, save for the clipped finish. That’s the disconcerting part. I also got the soy note on the front of the palate that others noted, which I found hard to believe when I read it. It definitely wasn’t there in the 2019. My verdict is not obviously flawed, and time will have to tell how the concerns play out. I’ll hold in the meantime, and will offer a bottle for the next science experiment opportunity to see how it progresses.
Around here some people will call you unethical for trying to return an older corked bottle.
I won’t say who said that but his name rhymes with God Wrench.
I forget the term I was told by the prominent wine maker - Necro something or other which is a term when the grapes look fine but have died inside the skins or something. Again he makes Napa Cab (which isn’t MB) and he is bulking out 66% of his product. He said that these heat spikes came very late and where much more severe than the run of the mill heat spikes. He told me in general to be aware of the vintage and that after 2020 most don’t want to talk about another bad vintage so it may get swept under the rug.
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Somehow I trust Morgan Twain Peterson more than anonymous Cab guy.
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It’s someone who posts here from time to time and has well over a dozen 100+ scores and makes wine for about 15 labels and makes wine from all the big “famous” vineyards in the Valley.
If he wants to publicly post his thoughts he is welcome to do so. I am sharing what he told me.
And I am not discrediting your sources or decisions to buy what you want to buy.
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Which is also why 2023 is being hyped as it is - after a few challenging vintages.
At the end of the day, grapes are a crop like any other and will be subject to the challenges mother nature throws at us each year. And these ‘changes’ seem to be more aberrant each year. A good winemaker will learn to make lemonade out of lemons, BUT the style of said wine may be altered by what mother nature gives them.
That said, there are more ‘winemaking tools’ now than ever to assist in creating that ‘lemonade’ so to speak . . .
Cheers
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This is such an interesting post in light of the accusations upthread of the wine being “clearly tainted.” I have limited experience - we all do, really - with smoke-tainted wines, but I own a wine shop in Portland, OR and tasted well over 100 examples of '20 WV Pinot. I also caught the '08 Anderson Valley wines as a buyer in California. In my experience, a “clearly [smoke] tainted” wine behaves much like a clearly cork tainted wine: without some type of mediation, it doesn’t improve. The flaws only become more accentuated as the wine is exposed to air. Full stop.
This isn’t at all a knock against you, Todd - I think your rhetoric has been very even handed, actually; you just happened to post the follow-up - but I really think people should take a moment to pause and turn toward humility instead of authority. If the wine improves at all on the second or third day, we really don’t have any idea how the wine will age, and what’s in the bottle 15-20 years from now will likely be more interesting, even as a data point, then the $$ you’ll get back from returning it. That’s my opinion, of course, and your money and wine collection is your own - our views on value being sundry if not legion - but some of the conclusions ITT seem fairly rash and motivated more by the desire to be right first than a desire to find the actual truth of the matter.
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I think this is a very valid point - seriously making me reconsider my return, honestly, though I think Fedex is showing up today so it might be too late
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