Thanks for the follow-up pics, Scott!!!
I wonder if it would still be drinkable at 40-ish years of age?
I’m guessing that’s why the bottle is still sitting in the cellar. Paul Draper’s notes and drinking windows are typically on the conservative side, but comments like “enjoyable this fall”, meaning the fall of 1979, and “improve with two or three years of bottle age”, or into 1981 or 1982, make me wonder how it would taste today. I’ll open it one of these days, but after 40 years, I’m not sure another few years will make that much of a difference.
I’m a big fan of the old Ridge Barberas. They were always interesting and held up to age. The Morgan Hill is on my list since it’s both a Ridge unicorn wine and a piece of Santa Clara Valley history.
The number of different bottling from Ridge is approaching infinity. Check out this page:
Try each item on the “wine” pull down menu.
Lots of other good info on their site.
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It is. We drank one last year and have one more.
Here’s an unusual one - the NV Cab. It’s a combination of the 66 and 69 vintages. It’s the second from left in the attached photo.
Heart’s Desire Zinfandel. It showed up here in Maryland in the very late 90’s early 2000’s. Nice wine.
Nice. I have a similar NV Cab from the 80’s. I think it’s 85-87 but I can’t quite recall. The exact vintages were not on the bottle, only that they were lighter vintages that were combined. I didn’t know that there was one that old. Very cool!
Yes, this one has the vintages disclosed on the back of the bottle in the detailed write-up.
There were a couple other vintage blend Monte Bellos in the '60s-ish. Something like a 66/67 and a 69/71, but don’t quote me.
Hi Wes,
You are correct about another NV Monte Bello. In addition to the 66/69 blend, there was also a 66/71 blend. Paul thought the 66/71 to be the longest lived of the NV Monte Bello.
Back in 2014 Ridge put up a slide show of 352 Zinfandel labels to celebrate 50 years of making Zin. I posted about it in this thread Geeking out on Ridge Zin labels - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers
Unfortunately the link in the thread is dead.
Wes, Michael M. brought a bottle of 66/71 to his 75th birthday bash at Ridge along with his last bottles of '62-66 and the 5 liter '68.
From the Wine Berserkers link:
I wish someone could find that link/presentation!!! 
I understand that companies have to take steps to prevent fraud, but the cache of information in that rare Ridge event provides more drinkers an opportunity to learn tons about the history of this winery!!
*** EDIT ***
I found the link to Ridge Vineyards’ 50th Anniversary slideshows! They are shared on this post.
There was a 66/69 also, and I’m pretty sure a third. (Also, '67, '69, maybe a '71. Some were brought by other people. Some appeared later than that initial flight. Someone else brought that '62, which was the best smelling vinegar, by far, that I’ve ever smelled…)
Here’s the story on the 1979 Essence, straight from the horse’s (Eric Baugher’s) mouth:
This is one of the rarest wines ever made by Ridge. It was made as a result of the terrible drought of the late 70’s. The vines didn’t yield much that year. They also got infected by botrytis. By the time the Ridge founders got back to the winery following their August vacations, they arrived to find desiccated grapes on the vines. They harvested and only made a few barrels of this Essence. Since it was Caitlyn Draper’s birth year, Paul made a few barrels of regular Monte Bello from a small block that had not yet shriveled. That portion of MB was never released. This essence wasn’t released either, until 2002. It was bottled in 1982, left in the cellar to age. Over time the cases got stacked further back into the cellar and blocked by equipment and other wines. It wasn’t until the late 90’s as we began to clear out the cellar that these cases were discovered. We printed labels, using our current technology of pressure sensitive, and labeled the bottles for sale. We offered it to our local collectors at $100 per bottle, which was about the price of a current vintage of Monte Bello at that time. We only kept a small amount for ourselves to continue tasting over the years.
Scott, thanks for posting Eric’s comments ! They are consistent with comments attributed to Paul Draper, here: https://blog.ridgewine.com/2009/09/03/questions-of-essence/
By the way, if you’re not familiar with it, there’s a lot of interesting history captured in the Ridge Blog. It appears new posts are added occasionally today. In the past, though, Ridge had a very active social media person who posted frequently - sometimes daily - and there’s a lot of fascinating nuggets throughout the blog posts.
The ones you mention weren’t in the “back room” when Michael invited me and Sandi in. There was so much wine floating about that I could’ve easily missed those.
That was Christopher “Preacher Boy” Watkins. He’s back to being a full-time musician. When he started there he tapped heavily into the Gang of Pour archives, since they go way back. Collectively older than Tom Hill, even. http://blogs.gangofpour.com/
This picture of our own Mike Dildine over a bottle of Ridge Monte Rosso 1994, from the HVS dinner at Chez Panisse a few years ago; he’s looking so engaged as anyone would be discussing this wine with Paul Draper and Joel Peterson:
