Morning At Monte Bello
Have you been to our Monte Bello tasting room? It’s right here …
Here 'tis!
(Special thanks to Monte Bello viticulturist Kyle Theriot, for once again sharing such amazing images!)
Archive for July, 2011
Do You Know The Way To Monte Bello?
July 30, 2011P.S. I Love You!
July 26, 2011It’s the Ninth Annual Petite Sirah Noble Symposium today, and to celebrate, PS lovers all over the globe are tasting their favorite offerings, and tweeting their thoughts and observations. Wanna slip into the jetstream? Use #PSLove when you tweet, and use your favorite tracking method to follow the convos; Twitterfall and Tweetdeck spring to mind as good options …
Anyhow, here in my own private Ridgeland, I’ve got two bottles of wine, a loaf of Watsonville Sourdough, and my laptop; must be tasting time!
This afternoon’s performance will commence with a short set from the opening act, followed by our headliner. The 2005 Ridge Vineyards Dynamite Hill Petite Sirah will go on at … um … 1:23pm! Meaning, now!
2005 Ridge Vineyards Dynamite Hill Petite Sirah
To describe the hues of this wine as being inky and concentrated is perhaps a tad redundant, given the varietal in question, but I will say there are some lovely and shimmering bright purple highlights dancing all ’round the limn, lending an appearance of play oft missing from the juice of this notoriously squid-inky grape … Bottled in 2007, 4 years of bottle age have definitely done some good work on the aromatics; loads of blue and black fruits, of course, but also a nice lavender and lilac layer, some berry pie sugar, a touch of cocoa powder, and a bit of anise … nicely resolving tannins at point-of-entry, pretty much devoid of the grippier, more adhesive characteristics that can sometimes plague younger renditions … a healthy if not overwhelming dose of acidity along the tongue-sides, and a jam-and-jelly viscosity down the middle make for an expansive mid-palate … the finish plays a little dirtier, with some mineral and chalk snowflaking the juice; a fair amount of flavor holds in the cheeks well after the swallow, and while the finish isn’t the lengthiest I’ve experienced, the lingering smoky notes are quite pleasant. Plus, at a polite 13.5% ABV, there is no residual heat to obfuscate the primary fruit, of which there is still a good abundance, at least of the darker sorts, particularly blackberry.
And now, the main event! This is a wine of extreme distinction, and one certain to go down in Ridge history as a legendary release. Why? Well, it’s certainly delicious (full confession, I’ve been tasting this wine for days!), but beyond that, it’s also our VERY FIRST NATIONALLY RELEASED PETITE SIRAH!
2009 Ridge Vineyards Lytton Estate Petite Sirah
Tremendously viscous in the bowl; virtually legless; meaning it’s all glaze and no run-down … as above, a deep, deep, deep dark belly, with just a hint of dancing mulberry highlights in the limn and on the surface … Definitely young on the nose, with just a hint of funk still needing to blow off, but below that lives an utterly ambrosial, paradisiacal bouquet ripe with bubbling blueberry slump fruit (I think you’d have to be from Maine — which I’m not, by the way – to get that reference!) abutting some decadent caramel cremes and a hickory stick’s worth of bark and woodsiness … God, this is going to be a good wine! It’s awful young though, no doubt about it; the tannins, while exquisitely drawn and acted, are certainly prominent; it’s a testament to their refinement that they don’t in fact feel stickily exposed, but rather, already manage to lay comfortingly on the tongue like a favorite winter duvet … Just a wealth of fruit information in the mid-palate; all of it dark and robust, but astonishingly complex all the same: I’m talkin’ fig, plum, mulberry, currant, black cherries, etc. Code name: Delicious. Drinking this wine is like going back in time to a room above a Haight-Ashbury Head Shop; there are black light posters on the wall, someone is working a really big bong for all it’s worth, Hendrix is on the stereo, there is some funky Indian incense burning, and you’re chilled out on the coach with an acoustic guitar that has a black lacquer finish, and you’re fingerpicking something doleful and southern while you watch your friend make out with a very groovy chick of some sort of compendial and indescribably alluring and cocoa-y ethnicity, thinking to yourself that if the sun never comes up again, you’re going to be ok, because swimming by yourself below the cliffs at the edge of the Richmond District in the dark is as zen-pure as your mojo-hungry soul can handle … and you’re picking that black git-box, and your friend and his galpal are now fully pretzled, and the incense is done but lingering, and Hendrix fades away, and the first tinkling gypsy piano notes of “Love Street” trip fantastic from your long-player, and nobody spilled the bong, and you have a waking dream about black plums, and somewhere in the future, I understand you.
Were You As Fine In ’79? -or- The Past Shall Speak, From York Creek!
July 25, 2011One of the very great things about hosting this blog is that I’ve become the somewhat unwitting repository of a great wealth of Ridge arcana, running the gamut from tales of Days in the Vineyards to tasting notes of impossibly rare wines.
These tales come to me in many fashions; most commonly across the bar in the tasting room, or via e-mail, when some kind soul takes an extra moment to share something particularly special.
One such example of the latter occasion occurred not too long back, when a gentleman by the name of Bruce Macumber – whose history with Ridge runs deep, deep, deep — wrote an e-mail about a wine he’d recently unearthed from his personal vaults. It was such a brilliant story, such a great example of Ridge wine longevity, and such a charmingly crafted note, that I was desperate to share it. Fortunately, Bruce obliged my query, and here is what he wrote:
Wanted you to know i just enjoyed your 1979 York Creek NV Zinfandel which I purchased at the winery in 1982 from Dave & Paul. Good fill, never cellared over 65′, cork still but barely intact, nice 29 year old nose only showing faint oxidation. Color was lightly brown/amber/brick hue and taste still had berry fruit, mild tannins, and some/enough Petite Sirah structure/body to compliment our chicken dinner with mild sauces. Fully complex & completely developed. It shows what lots of harvest extract will do with extended bottle age and the bouquet was as good as it gets.
Nice!
And lest you not be feeling to the full extent just what all this wine has weathered in its many years on this earth, ask yourself, what, if anything, were YOU doing in 1979?
Were you making out to this?
While driving this?
Or were you more into dancing with this?
Or watching this?
Well, whatever your preferences, I think it’s safe to say that was a long, long time ago, and any wine that’s showing well still if, well, a really good wine.
Thanks to Bruce for sharing his story, and to all y’all out there with Ridge stories tucked into your pockets, reveal, reveal!
If You Were Here (at Monte Bello) …
July 23, 2011If you were here …
… you’d be here:
And here:
And here:
And here:
I’m just sayin’ …
Strategic Partnerships, Shoes, and Wine
July 22, 2011You’re probably familiar with the term “Strategic Partnerships.” It’s a pretty common part of today’s business vernacular. But there are certainly variations as regards the breadth of definition. For example, in our business, a narrow definition of a strategic partnership would be for us, as a producer of wines, to reach out to someone who is a seller of wines. Certainly strategic, but not particularly imaginative.
I like to think that, here are Ridge, we have a pretty expansive definition of what constitutes a strategic partner, due in no small part to that fact that, while we are indeed a business that “sells” something (i.e. wine), what we “sell” is as much philosophy and worldview, as it is product. And truly, I think we share it, as opposed to sell it.
The point being that when we think of strategic partnerships, we tend to think of people/groups/organizations/businesses with which we share a philosophy and worldview, as opposed to people/groups/organizations/businesses that are simply in the same business as us.
One of the things I love most about Ridge Vineyards is that we seem forever to be engaged in a perennial dance of reconciliation, forever enacting an integrative duality, always striving to bridge the cerebral and the physical, the artistic and the scientific, the tangible and the ephemeral, the high brow and the low brow, the lovely and the funky, the studied and the instinctual. Ridge Vineyards is a Yin Yang composed of one-half mercurially austere seriousness and one-half playfully even-handed populism. Ridge is deadly serious about making something that is really, really fun to enjoy.
This is what we look for in our “strategic partnerships,” shared sensibilities in all the regards noted above.
Enter, oddly enough, shoes. You may have seen a previous post on this blog in which I waxed long and luxuriously on the footwear of wine. (If not, you can check it out here.) The point being, that through a very interesting and enjoyable set of circumstances, I have come to know one of our Monte Bello Collector members as more than just a customer. I am happy to now count him not only as a friend, but also as a partner. He works for a shoe company, but believe you me, this ain’t sellin’ shoes like what Al Bundy did …
He works on the “Lifestyle” side of his business, which means that he spends a lot of time looking for a lot of strategic partnerships; partnerships of the very same sort of variety and character that we so very much enjoy.
And thus it was that I found myself in San Francisco recently, at the very fabulous Union Made store; an establishment with one of the better Mission Statements around:
In November of 2009 we opened a little shop where a liquor store used to be on a quiet little street between the Mission and Castro neighborhoods in San Francisco. The idea was to bring only the finest quality men’s goods to one intimate space, sell it a fair price and to deal with people who appreciate such merchandise and customer service. So we found a space and started making a list of our favorite brands. Brands that manufacture clothing that is durable, well designed and timeless. Jeans that a customer could wear for years and would sooner repair than replace; sweatshirts that get softer and more perfect after each laundry cycle; a shoe that will be just as relevant and better looking in 20 years then it is today. As word of our shop spread, we started getting requests from people all over the world for our hand picked clothing and dry goods. As our shop has evolved, so has our mission – to offer people everywhere the same quality service and products our customers in our little store on Sanchez Street. We are going back to our roots while knowing that the time we live in is now.
I was there representing Ridge Vineyards at the request of New Balance, who were launching a new line of artisan shoes made strictly in the USA.
Union Made, New Balance Made In The USA, and Ridge Vineyards. Now that’s a strategic partnership!
And how about this, shoes sold in a wine box! There’s another great bit of partnershipping:
Needless to say, it was quite an affair. I brought with me the following wines to taste guests on:
2009 Ridge Vineyards Estate Chardonnay (loads of lemon, honey, and pear, with a very fresh, but solidly built feel …)
2009 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (the essence of elegance; spice, acidity, herbality, all wrapped up in a bow of high-tone red fruit …)
2005 Ridge Vineyards Lytton Estate Grenache (the most structured of the bunch, with amazing percolations of bright red fruit and spice inside a bodice of firm and mineral-y tannin …)
2008 Ridge Vineyards Estate Cabernet (complex, integrated, structured, a tremendous amount of information for the palate …)
And here are a few snaps from the event (I’ve also provided a link at the bottom of the page to Union Made’s blog, which has some lovely pics from the event as well!)
And here is Union Made’s wrap up: The Union Made Blog: Event Recap!
My Wine Pages: My Ridge Anniversary!
July 17, 2011Today is a special day for me; it’s the day I celebrate my Ridge Anniversary. July 17th. The day I signed my offer letter for employment with Ridge Vineyards. It was an indisputably life-changing day.
When I first came to Ridge, Donn Reisen was still with us, and The Great Recession had not yet occurred. The 2001 Monte Bello had not yet received a 99 point rating from Robert Parker, and this blog did not yet exist. I was not yet a husband, nor a father. I am proudly, miraculously, both now.
Things have certainly changed.
July 17, historically, it seems to me, has not proven to be either a particularly auspicious, or inauspicious date. I mean, admittedly, Constantinople fell to the First Crusade on this date, but, well, that was a long time ago. Though it does call to mind for me They Might Be Giants’ version of ”Istanbul, No Constantinople”:
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks
Which, I should note, was originally performed by The Four Lads. See for yourself Le Difference!
The Four Lads
They Might Be Giants
And it was, in fact, the day that Walt Disney opened Disneyland is Anaheim, California, back in 1955. But, well, that was just Goofy …
It was also Jimmy Cagney’s birthday, which should certainly count for something. And in fact, it was actually the day Billie Holiday passed, which really counts for something.
Lady Day
Which most certainly calls to mind a great poem by Frank O’ Hara …
Frank O' Hara
…entitled “The Day Lady Died” …
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959, and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.
I get nostalgic when I think of anniversaries, and my inner hobo old bluesman man comes out. I get melancholic, and wise, and mournful, and excellent. And in a strange way, I also get young again. Which calls to mind Bob Dylan’s great song, “My Back Pages”:
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Which then calls to mind my re-write of another verse from this song, which I just wrote:
In a pourer’s stance, I aim my wine
At the visitors who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my guests
In the instant that I preach
My wineway led by allusion notes
Poetry from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Which means nothing other than that I learn alot by being here. I have learned SO MUCH by being here.
Sometimes I just stop, look around, and say to myself, “Wow, I work at Ridge!”
July 17th. To paraphrase a line from Ice Cube, “Today was a good day.”
Zins, Blends, & BBQ, in Pictures! (Zinbo Number One!)
July 14, 2011I’ll confess, we had really high hopes for this event. REALLY high hopes. But nothing truly could have prepared us for the total joyousness of the day, the outstanding mojo-ness of the day, the Day In The Vineyard-ness of the day, the pure, sublime grace of the day. What a day!
Thank you to everyone who attended, every staff member who worked, every wine that was poured, every morsel what was eaten; thank you to every bird that flew in the sky, every lizard that scuttled ‘cross the ground, every little breeze that blew, and every ray of sun that shined!
What a day!
Thank you, powers that be, for wine. Thank you too, for BBQ!
Special thank you to RM (you know who you are!) for dreaming it all up. You, sir, have BIG dreams.
It all looked a little bit like this …
Which means I must sing this …
Zinbo Number One!
A little bit of Zinfandel in my life,
A little bit of Lytton Springs by my side.
A little bit of Geyserville is all I need,
A little of Mazzoni is all I see.
A little bit of Texas in the sun,
A little Carolina all night long.
A little Kansas City, that is fine,
A little California makes me your wine!!!!!!!!
Zinbo Number One!
And for a slideshow of snaps, please dig this …
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Part IV: The Weird and Wacky World of Search Engine Terms!
July 13, 2011I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t know whether to be disturbed, or to consider it a compliment to the breadth of content on this blog. Either way, it never fails to amaze me the search engine terms that lead folks to our blog.
Here, for your reading pleasure, is the fourth installment in this delightful series, and if you’ve the stamina, definitely read on to the end, to discover one of the weirder foursomes we’ve yet encountered. And do bear in mind, these terms were all actually entered into actual search engines, by actual real people. Really.
So, here we go :
fugazi
the neverending story
lu yu
cheese gromit
fefferoni peppers
poems about wine and life
elmo hope
route 66 new mexico
ricardo ray – the real nitty gritty
nero wolfe where there’s a will
weed bong
haunted lytton springs
boar confit
dream sequence
man dressed like a woman
snails poem new yorker
the big man
michael dukakis big helmet
bong hash
just another day at the office meaning
cannabis bong
paris café hemingway
was there no secret service protecting abraham lincoln
cryptolaemus montrouzieri video
“crepe and black lamps” vliet
wc fields drunk
rattlesnakes
when it was published the typewriter
—And now, for the final foursome of weirdness!
darkman burned
how are baby caterpillars born?
funkpower hour with bing graphite
horizontal winemakers
99 Point Rating!
July 12, 2011Have you heard about the latest issue of Wine Advocate, Robert Parker’s legendary publication? The one profiling California reds? Issue 195? There is a Ridge Vineyards wine reviewed in this issue, and boy oh boy does it get a fine treatment!
Here is how the Wine Advocate defines a wine that receives a rating of 96-100 points:
An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase, and consume.
Which makes a 99-point rating seem pretty spectacular, I’d say! Which means that the Ridge Vineyards 2001 Monte Bello has just received, well, a pretty spectacular rating!
The review opens this way:
“A resoundingly great effort from this iconic producer.”
And concludes with these words:
“…make no mistake about this Monte Bello — it is a great wine.”
Not so very bad, as my Grandpa used to say. Not so very bad indeed.
(For more about Monte Bello, and the Monte Bello Collector futures program, please click here.)
Like this:
Wine Cam: 2003 Ridge Vineyards Lytton Springs
July 12, 2011We hosted quite an event up here last weekend, Zins, Blends, & BBQ (stay tuned for an upcoming photo montage from the event!), and one of the very special treats we poured was a library zinfandel, the 2003 Ridge Vineyards Lytton Springs.
I was so impressed by the super powers this wine exhibited that it was immediately clear no ordinary tasting note would do. I needed to find something that truly showcased how special this wine is. I needed to prove it could fly.
Thus, Wine Cam was born. Enjoy!
