The Event Of The Century?

February 8, 2010 by christopherwatkins

Ok, maybe not the event of the century, but certainly an EXTREMELY noteworthy one! What is it? It’s this:

The Monte Bello Half-Bottle Showcase!

And what exactly does that mean? It’s means this:

Please join Ridge Vineyards as we taste an extraordinary vertical flight of library Monte Bello bottled in 375 ml format! Not only are half-bottles an economical way to take home a bottle of our flagship Monte Bello Cabernet blend, but courtesy of the accelerated development of wines bottled in smaller format, these very cellarable vintages are ready to drink now! So, as these bottlings are only available in extremely limited quantities, this event accordingly constitutes a very unique opportunity to taste and purchase rare Monte Bello offerings; the 1987, 1988, and 1993 vintages will be priced at $85, $100, and $100 respectively (special event-only pricing!), or, you can purchase the trio for $250.00!

And when is this happening? It’s happening on Valentine’s Day Weekend! February 13th & 14th, 11-4pm, we’ll be offering a very special Monte Bello Tasting Flight comprised of our 2006 Monte Bello Chardonnay, our 2006 Monte Bello (current vintage!), and the three-vintage half-bottle Monte Bello vertical! This flight will be available for $30/person for non-members, and $15/person for members. (And hey members, don’t forget that February is a Membership Month, which means you can extend your member pricing on the Monte Bello Tasting Flight to as many guests as you wish to bring with you!)

The Trio

In the esteemed company of Paul Draper and Eric Baugher, I had the great privilege of tasting through a wide array of older-vintage Monte Bellos in half-bottle as we prepared for this event, and what follows is a brief compendium of our tasting notes on the three vintages we selected for this weekend:

Tasting Notes
Monte Bello Vertical: 1987, 1988, 1993 (375 ml)
Tasters: Paul Draper, Eric Baugher, Christopher Watkins

1987 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello, 375 ml
$85/btl. (Event-Only Pricing!)

Notes of sweet fruits & candied fruits resulting in a singularly nectar’d florality, co-mingling with aromatics redolent of sandalwood, charcoal, underbrush and chapparal — Palate notes of olive, tobacco, orange peel, raisin, and cedar —An enticing juxtaposition of sweet and sour, with a very earthy, very rustic character — Structurally, very vibrant acidity and notably chalky tannins make for a Monte Bello that is developed, resolved, and ready to drink. 

1988 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello, 375 ml
$100/btl. (Event-Only Pricing!)

Opulent and complex on the nose, with a fine mix of crushed rock minerality, black currant, baked pie cherries and mixed berry jam (Marion and Logan), leading to a sweet center exhibiting bright red fruits, faint strains of pomegranate & leather, and a superb intensity — Mouthfeel-wise, very dense, very full — Structurally, lively acidity, and firm tannins decidedly present but resolved — All in all, a fine mixture of layered mountain fruits, buoyant acidity, muscular tannins, and an elegant resolution. An ideal drinker.

1993 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello, 375 ml
$100/btl. (Event-Only Pricing!)

Exotic nose blending mint & red current with Umami notes of soy and teriyaki, plus an additional layer of eucalyptus and bay leaf counterbalancing caramel apples, spiced chocolate, and vanilla — Rich mid-palate fruits mixing with secondary wet stone and tertiary mixed olives to form a complex center — Appealing, integrated, and just a bit different — Very well structured, and ready to drink. 

The Pour

We did a little sneak preview of this vertical at our First Friday event on the evening of the 5th, and a very well-regarded wine blogger who was in attendance has posted his tasting notes on-line, should you wish to read some additional perspective. Here is what he wrote:

‘87 Monte Bello (SCM)
(Includes 5% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc. 11.7% alc.)
Nose – warm spicy cigar box and rich dark fruit, lovely peppery tobacco.
Lighter body with intense tobacco and black currant, smoky, good minerality, dusty tannin, blackberry. 92 pts

‘88 Monte Bello (SCM)
(Includes 3% Merlot, 2% Petit Verdot. 12.9% alc.)
Nose – smooth full purple fruit, kind of rustic, creamy, cardamom, smoke, dried herbs.
Sweetish tart boysenberry, smoke, blackberry, blue elderberry, plum, black currant, dusty/woody tannin. Comes together a bit odd in a way – tart, round youthful fruit, light body – that more time may help. 88+ pts

‘93 Monte Bello (SCM)
(Includes 7% Merlot, 7% Petit Verdot. 12.5% alc.)
Nose – minty lamb, smooth, intense, shy and youthful blackberry and black currant, eucalyptus, pineapple sage.
Lanolin, blackberry and black currant, smoky and tart, dusty and slightly grippy tannin, blue elderberry, dried sage. Very youthful. Funky jujube note and a touch of cedar. Should peak in about 15 years. 92 pts

The Swirl

So, in conclusion, I humbly submit that there is simply no better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day Weekend than to attend this remarkable tasting. Whether you’re in love and with your lover wishing to relish the delight and decadence of ready-to-drink Monte Bello, or whether you’re single and celebrating that you don’t have to share, this is not an event to be missed! And do note that this very special tasting flight will be on offer at both our Lytton Springs and Monte Bello Tasting Rooms.

The Line Up

February 13th & 14th, 2010: Monte Bello Half-Bottle Showcase!

February 13 & 14, 11-4pm
Monte Bello Tasting Room (Cupertino) & Lytton Springs Tasting Room (Healdsburg)

$15 for all Ridge Members, and $30 for the public.

The Wine

Hope to see you this weekend!

For more information about upcoming events at Ridge Vineyards, please click here.

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Posted in Bordeaux varietals, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Events & Photographs, Monte Bello, Paul Draper, Petit Verdot, Press Reviews, Special Offerings, Tasting Flights, Tasting Notes, Tasting Rooms, Varietals & Blends, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Blogs, Wine Tales, Winemaking | Leave a Comment »

Bottling Line Video!

February 8, 2010 by christopherwatkins

Care to see the Ridge Vineyards bottlling line in action? Then jet on over to our Facebook page, and watch the 2008 East Bench going into bottle! Need a quicker way to get there? Just click here!

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Posted in Events & Photographs | Leave a Comment »

Ridge A to Z: The Follow-Up!

February 5, 2010 by christopherwatkins

For those of you who may have missed it, we had a rather lovely event up here at Monte Bello not so very long back (you can read about it and see pics here), and the wine blog-o has very kindly offered up a pair of fine write-ups about said event, which I encourage you to take a look at, in the hopes of exciting you to the point of attendance next time around!

The first comes to us from our friend Dave Tong at his blog Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley wines, and it truly constitutes a really, really excellent summation of all we were trying to do with our Ridge A to Z Membership Showcase. Thanks Dave, we’re really happy you could attend! Here’s Dave’s write-up: Ridge Wine Clubs. Of particular note is Dave’s review of our 1992 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay; this is not a wine I get to pour with anything resembling regularity, and it was a real treat to share it on this fine day. Here is what Dave had to say in his tasting notes:

1992 Chardonnay, Santa Cruz Mountains
An interesting demonstration of how well Ridge wines age. Bear in mind that this is the second wine, the lots that didn’t make it into the Monte Bello Chardonnay, and isn’t intended to be aged. The colour was a nice bright yellow; I’d have expected a darker colour from an 18 year old wine. On the nose it was pure caramel; there was caramel and nuts on the palate. Showing a little oxidation and a light ‘fino sherry’ finish. A very interesting wine. I rarely get the chance to try whites this old and they typically disappoint, but this did not. 90

The second post I’d like to note is from our friends over at Barton Orchard, who also offered up a nice set of tasting notes from the event. You can find the post here, and as with Dave, Wes posted some great notes on the ‘92 Chard as well …

92 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains
Nose – very mature, smooth, hazelnut, cardamon, subtle lemon curd, tarragon. Hazelnut, savory lemon, smooth zest, cardamon and nutmeg, tarragon. Excellent mature Chard. Drink now. 92 pts

Cheers!

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Posted in Events & Photographs, Monte Bello, Press Reviews, Tasting Notes, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Blogs | Leave a Comment »

The Post-Zap Wrap! -or- The Post-Zap Rap!

February 5, 2010 by christopherwatkins

Well, another ZAP has come and gone (just in case the acronym is not instantly recognizable, you can read a previous explanatory post here), and I have to tell you, in conversation with Paul Draper on Monday, he was absolutely over the moon about this year’s event, saying he thought it was just about one of the best ever, and not only was I of course very happy to hear that, but I am also hopeful that if you attended, your experience was equally positive!

Judging by the post-Zap write-ups out there, it looks as if Paul wasn’t the only one to have found this year’s Zinapalooza to be a rather notably excellent occurence, so, for those of you who were there and wish to relive the magic, and/or those of you who weren’t but want a retroactive taste, here’s a quick sampling of some of the great write-ups that followed this year’s Zinfandel Festival:

It’s probably not suprising that one of the most thorough posts comes to us from Alder Yarrow over at Vinography, whose article is entitled ”The Best Zinfandels in California: Tasting at ZAP 2010.” A heady title to say the least, and of course one man’s opinion is but one man’s opinion, but his is an opinion I always consider it a privilege to be privy to, and so I’m doubly pleased to find that our wines found a more-than-respectable place on his tasting roster. Interestingly enough perhaps, and certainly a good sign for the future, is that our as-of-yet unreleased 2008 Pagani Ranch was the top-scoring Ridge wine! To see Alder’s full run-down, click here.

John Cesano has contributed an equally thorough post-Zap wrap-up on his blog, made all the more interesting for the fact that he sat in on our very own Eric Baugher’s zinfandel talk:

Friday, January 28, at 10:30 in the morning, 150 or so gathered in the Peacock Court Ballroom at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill in San Francisco for the 9th Annual Flights!: A Showcase of Zinfandels  seated wine tasting.

Five winemakers of Zinfandel would talk about Zinfandel blends, field blends and in-winery blends, the history and future of Zinfandel blends, and the place of Zinfandel blends in the market.

You can read the full spread of his thoughts and observations here.

And of course, you can return to The Gray Market Report (see previous reference here) for some excellent follow-up on ZAP wines, including a very nice nod to our 2007 Paso Robles. The full post is here. And just for kicks, you can see a reasonably and expectedly singular photo of W. Blake Gray and Alder Yarrow (well, their zinfandel-coated tongues, really) right here.

 I’ll conclude with a couple of photos taken by our very own Sean Yamamoto, just in case you’ve never for yourself experienced the inspired lunacy that can be ZAP; I like to think of these two pics as expressing the Before And After The Flood aspects of this wonderfully decadent event. Cheeers!

Before The Flood!

After The Flood!

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Posted in Events & Photographs, Paul Draper, Press Reviews, Tasting Notes, Varietals & Blends, Vineyards and Oenology, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Blogs, Winemaking, Zinfandel | 1 Comment »

A Whole Lotta Ridgin’ Goin’ On! -or- All The Wine That’s Fit To Print!

February 5, 2010 by christopherwatkins

Great slew of Ridge information out there lately, in terms of contemporary tasting notes and other such items of interest to the Ridge-O-Philes among ye; some of it is Post-Zap commentary, some of it is Post-Ridge Events commentary, and some of it is just plain self-generated commentary, but it’s all good, all interesting, and all most appreciated! Here’s a lil’ round-up of some quite interesting articles out there:

For an excellently thorough look at a very fine line up of Ridge zinfandels from a very fine wine blog, look no further than “The Great Ridge Zinfandel Line-Up: Or, Yet Another Reason Why California is the Best State” over on Vinicultured: A Wine Blog. Here is what was tasted and notated:

  • 2005 Ridge “Paso Robles” Zinfandel | 100% Zinfandel | Paso Robles
  • 2006 Ridge “East Bench” Zinfandel | 100% Zinfandel | Dry Creek Valley
  • 2006 Ridge “Ponzo” Zinfandel | 95% Zinfandel, 5% Petite Sirah | Russian River Valley
  • 2005 Ridge “Pagani Ranch” Zinfandel | 96% Zinfandel, 2% Petite Sirah, 1% Alicante Bouschet, 1% Mataro | Sonoma Valley
  • 2006 Ridge “Geyserville” Zinfandel | 70% Zinfandel, 18% Carignane, 10% Petite Sirah, 2% Mataro | Alexander Valley
  • 2007 Ridge “Geyserville” Zinfandel | 58% Zinfandel, 22% Carignane, 18% Petite Sirah, 2% Mataro | Alexander Valley
  • 2007 Ridge “Lytton Springs” Zinfandel | 71% Zinfandel, 22% Petite Sirah, 7% Carignane | Dry Creek Valley

    •  

    For those of you who might prefer the more technical side of oeno-literature, there is an absolutely  fascinating article currently available over on “Wines & Vines” by Tim Patterson entitled “With Fermenters, Does Size Matter?”  Tim is a wine writer and home wine-maker, or garagiste, shall we say, and this is a fascinating look at the matter of fermentor sizes, and the effect this has on resulting wines. Our very own Paul Draper makes an excellent appearance in the article, and while I encourage you to dive in and read the whole thing, I’ve included Paul’s portion of the content below:

    Paul Draper at Ridge Vineyards says that Ridge tries to fit the fermenter to the size of the parcel being harvested — a portion of a particular vineyard that comes ripe at the same time. The Ridge facilities have several sizes available — all of them small by Lockwood standards, not because of some philosophy of tanks, but rather a philosophy geared toward careful parcel picking.

    The Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet ripens in patches of maybe 1- to 5-tons, and the same is true for some portions of the Zinfandel harvest from Lytton Springs and Geyserville. The Dusi Ranch vineyard in Paso Robles, on the other hand, is more rolling than ridge-y, so its lots of Zinfandel tend to be routed to larger fermenters.

    The array of relatively small fermenters offers more chance for control and probably better extraction, Draper believes. He adds an interesting historical observation: The current fondness for small fermenters is partly a reaction to the early days of California winemaking, when huge vessels produced uneven fermentations and poor extraction.

    And I’d of course be remiss if I didn’t mention to you that, as it turns out, Ridge was not just Day 23 over on Jerry Bullfrog’s Wine Stash, we were days 23-29! Meaning there is a lot of excellent reading on our wines to be found on this site; in case you didn’t catch my initial discovery of this blog, you can find out about it here; in short, it’s a great premise for a blog, and something very well worth reading, both for the Ridge commentary, and, well, everything else! But if you want to sample some idiosyncratically intensive and endearingly left-of-center contemporary tasting notes on the following wines: the 2007 Late Harvest Dusi Ranch Zinfandel, the 2005 Lytton West Syrah, the 2003 Geyserville, the 2006 Buchignani Ranch Carignane, the 2007 East Bench, the 2004 Dynamite Hill Petite Sirah, the 1992 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay, and the 2006 Monte Bello, then you need to read the Bullfrog!

    Thanks for reading, and check back shortly for a follow-up round-up of Post-Zap commentary!

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    Posted in Bordeaux varietals, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignane, Chardonnay, Lytton, Monte Bello, Paul Draper, Petite Sirah, Press Reviews, Rhone varietals, Syrah, Tasting Notes, Varietals & Blends, Vineyards and Oenology, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Blogs, Winemaking, Zinfandel | Leave a Comment »

    Wine Quote Of The Week!

    February 4, 2010 by christopherwatkins

    Well, I’ll concede it, I’ve gotten my Ts mixed-up; I was to post this on Tuesday, and here it is Thursday; an alphebetary aberration of a sort, but one I’ll hope to rectify with the following quote, a rather excellent contribution to the “Priorities, Priorities” folder in every individual’s psychological filing cabinet, and one which comes to us from the very, very, very great James Joyce:

    “What is better than to sit at the end of the day and drink wine with friends, or substitutes for friends?”

    Now, that’s not to try and give you the impression that Ol’ Mr. Joyce was just another run-of-the-mill curmudgeonly foodie, no, no sirree, in fact, it’s rather clear he had a decidedly peculiar way of sussing the culinary pleasures of the world, as is perhaps evidenced by the following most striking of quotes (and I’ll preface this by saying that I sincerely hope this is my only post to end with the three words this one ends with!) :

    “A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk.”

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    2009 Harvest Report!

    January 29, 2010 by christopherwatkins

    For those of you who may be interested (for example, those of you considering joining the Monte Bello Collector Program with the 2009 vintage!), the 2009 Harvest Report is now available for your reading pleasure!

    It was certainly quite a growing season. Beginning with the transition from a very long and cold winter,

    to a cool spring,

    and moving through a fairly mild summer,

    into a harvest  especially notable for the debut of a new grape sorting system at Monte Bello,

    it’s been a thoroughly riveting cycle, and now that we’ve made it through, I’m very happy to say it looks like all signs are pointing to 2009 being a great vintage!

    If you would like to read the Harvest Report, you can find it here.

    Enjoy!

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    Posted in Lytton, Monte Bello, Vineyards and Oenology, Winemaking | 1 Comment »

    ZAP Map! -or- Tips On What To Taste At Zap!

    January 29, 2010 by christopherwatkins

    Greetings all!

    As the West Coast-based Zin-Obsessed amongst you will already know, this weekend is ZAP weekend.

    For this who don’t recognize the acronym, ZAP stands for Zinfandel Producers & Advocates, and every year they put on a Zinfandel Festival, which is truly one of the most oenophillically decadent endeavors one can engage in, should one be zin-curious … this weekend’s event is the 19th Annual, and as usual, there are quite literally hundreds of producers who will be on hand pouring samples of their wares.

    This can make for a pretty daunting day (or set of days!), if you don’t know where to go or what to look for. Fortunately, a great many of the attendees are also writers, who pretty rapidly turn their immediate thoughts and perspectives into blogs and other on-line resources, and these can accordingly be great guides for the uninitiated and otherwise lost attendees.

    An excellent first destination would be The Gray Market Report. This is the blog of freelance writer W. Blake Gray, and he’s already put up a post with a list of his favorites at ZAP so far; this is as good a place to start as any, and because his list lists Ridge, well, all the better!

    You can find his ZAP post here.

    So, if you go, enjoy yourselves, but drink responsibly (use a spittoon!), and send me your tasting notes and photographs!

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    Posted in Events & Photographs, Varietals & Blends, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Blogs, Wine Tales, Zinfandel | 1 Comment »

    A Belated Jazz Birthday …

    January 28, 2010 by christopherwatkins

    What with so many other things to write about recently, I inadvertently let slip by a very important anniversary, a sin of omission for which I wish to atone for now; on January 23rd, the world celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt, and I too would like to join the ranks of those honoring the life and works of this great man, and this great talent.

    But first, some justification, as the question may already be in your mind as to why a wine blog would focus on this man and his music.

    Given my firm belief that the consumption of wine is a deeply experiential endeavor that fully transcends the boundaries of the simple taste experience, I can confidently assert that I am hard pressed to conjure up reference to any another body of musical work that so flagrantly evokes the experience of drinking wine, or is so suited to it; perhaps it’s simply the French-ness of the music, or the mysterious Gypsy origins of the genius sewn into the code of the compositions;

    perhaps it’s something in the curiously addictive dichotomy of hot-cold vibes, the blistering paces matched against the sensuous tones, the melancholic melodies against the buoyant techniques, the sex and the sorrow; or perhaps it’s modern conditioning, endless hours in wine bars spent sipping, sampling, and savoring to the soundtracks that have become now so standard.

    Perhaps it’s a timelessness born of a specific time; something about the devil-may-care passions of a post-war Europe trying to rediscover its soul in the fevers of wine and song, the clouds of smoke, the loves and furies of Gypsy Jazz, the poems, the romances, the jazz in the cafés …

    this headiness seems to speak through the decades to all of us; who doesn’t find it somehow strangely and spiritually decadent to sit with friends and loved ones over wine and bread and cheese talking deep into the early morning hours about anything and everything, as if everything said mattered more than anything in the world, as if a revolution of emotion were being born.

    In the end, I don’t know what it is, I can only say that somehow, the sound of Django Reinhardt is the sound of drinking wine.

    Tonight, my missus and I will raise our glasses (Syrah seems most appropriate; perhaps one of our few remaining bottles of the 2005 Lytton West Syrah), and toast to friendship and love, to passion and vision, to the old world and the new, to wine, to Django, and to each other, and we’ll do so as the last flickering rays of the setting sun light the bellies of the bay-cloaking clouds with their epic flares, to the strains of “Nuages.” If you’ve not already done so, I encourage you all to put a little Django on tonight, and have a glass or two of wine. There’s a revolution in the air …

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    Posted in History, Syrah, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine Tales, Wine and Jazz | 2 Comments »

    Lovely Blog Review Of The 2006 Monte Bello, & The 1992 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay!

    January 27, 2010 by christopherwatkins

    Jerry Bullfrog’s Wine Stash. I love it! What a great name for a blog … And what a great idea for a blog! Here’s the tagline from the site:

    A review of a different wine/beer/spirit everyday for a year, blended with commentary on random observations.

    I love it!

    So, if you haven’t checked this blog out yet, I highly recommend it.

    (Do note though, that some of the posts are, well, a tad profane. Often wonderfully, artfully, passionately, singularly profane, but profane nonetheless. Just something to know going in …)

    Mainly, there are some lovely tasting notes on the current vintage of Monte Bello (2006) as well as commentary on a rare tasting of 1992 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay to be found there, amidst all the other “commentary on random observations.”

    And so I say, cheers Bullfrog! And cheers to your companion “Crotchy” too!

    p.s. For those of you keeping score, Ridge is Day 23!

    p.p.s The 1992 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay is no longer “officially” available, but between you and me, well, I just might have a line on a bottle or two … shhhhhh!

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    Posted in Monte Bello, Tasting Notes, Tasting Rooms, Wine Blogs | 3 Comments »

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