Opportunities to taste a lot of wines from the U.S are a rather few and far between here in New Zealand as very few are imported. We rely on friends bringing bottles back to provide a little depth. A local retailer here invited a group of people along for a ‘bring a bottle of American wine’ tasting. This was partly a farewell to two of his clients, a Californian couple who have been working here for a year and are shortly to return home. On their last trip home they very kindly collected a few bottles to bring back as the core of the tasting and which were labels that none of us locals had had a chance to try before.
I took along a 1994 Ridge Monte Bello which had a bit of an emotional connection for me as I visited the vineyard in November 1994, so not that long after the grapes were picked, though I managed to pick up this particular bottle in Australia ten or so years ago. I figured that it would likely be fully mature so it was the perfect time to open it.
The fill level was superb with no signs of ullage. Cork a little soft but came out cleanly and there was no sign of staining or seepage up the sides. I decanted the wine off sediment, returned to the cleaned bottle and drove to the venue and it was served about 90 minutes later. The nose was fabulous with sweet fruit still evident and wonderful complexity: the key word was elegance. Rich and mouth filling on the palate with tannin structure still underpinning the wine and layers of flavour leading to a long, long sumptuous finish. This was a stunning wine that made you stop and go back to it again and again; beautifully balanced, nothing out of place, wonderfully elegant and a real treat to open. I know that this wine (& winery) is held in high regard by many and I can absolutely see why.
94,95,96 were all great and are fantastic to drink now IMO. It’s been killing me that as more people are “discovering” MB the hammer prices have risen accordingly.
Had the '94 a couple years ago and it was just as you describe. I was lucky to pick up four more with the same good provenance at a good price $125 each and very much looking forward to them. Thanks for the notes!
Thank you for the comments. I had meant to mention that I felt that the wine had years left in it (as Brian posted, I also felt that it was remarkably youthful), however, it is hard to imagine that it is likely to get any better than where it is now? I suspect that it is in the midst of a wonderful plateau of maturity: those of you that have this wine in your cellars (like Rob) have a treat in store, but I don’t think that there is any rush at all to open them. I should probably be adding this wine to the ‘WOTY so far’ thread as it is a stand out in 2014 for me.
Monte bello always delivers, and sometimes it is the lesser regarded vintages that really shine with age. Two years ago one of my woty candidates was an 86 monte bello which was never considered a standout. It was rivaled and potentially surpassed by a 1990 I had out of mag. Earlier this year, a 1973 had a strong, and youthful, showing.
I still have a mag of the 94 buried somewhere and am looking forward to it after this note!
I had the good fortune of running into an old friend in Baltimore 2 months ago. He’s now the wine buyer at a restaurant, and I was working with my distributor there when we called on him with some of my current releases. We got to talking about Monte Bello, and he offered to open a '94 just to see how it’s doing. I agree, it’s in the perfect place right now, and is on a plateau that will last for years to come, possibly decades.
That’s a vintage I’ll always remember since it was my first harvest working at a winery after graduating from Fresno. I was at Bernardus in the mountains above Carmel Valley. It was a very cool fall, and we picked the last of the Cabernet from the estate vineyard on Nov. 1. I imagine it was a similarly late harvest just an hour plus north in the mountains above Cupertino at Ridge. Nov. 1 was also the day I ruined my back for life when I mistook a bin full of grapes for an empty bin, and I ran up to it to push it down the crushpad, believing it was empty. 5 minutes later, I couldn’t walk.