Hard to believe ZAP’s #ZinFest has already come and gone. We anticipate it for so long, then suddenly, it slips right past us, and the anticipatory cycle starts anew.
Fortunately, via the miracles and mechanisms of modern guerilla theater, we are able to preserve small traces of the memories in digital form, there to enrich us when we seek and need renewal.
Two truths:
1. The convention of the End-Of-Year list is most decidedly a media trope that is long overdue to be retired.
2. It is impossible to effectively summarize, in one go, an entire year.
So, that said, here are some End-Of-Year lists, and a summary of 2011!
First, the lists. Specifically, blog lists.
Top 5 blog posts on 4488: A Ridge Blog for 2011? (in terms of total viewerage)
2. The Oak Wars
3. Zoot!
5. Julia Child and Paul Draper
Top 5 Search Engine Terms that led people to 4488: A Ridge Blog in 2011?
1. Nadia G
2. Fugazi
3. Barrel
4. Black Friday
5. Thelonious Monk
Top 3 commentors on 4488: A Ridge Blog in 2011? (Thank you!)
1. Tom Wise
2. Robert Seaney
3. Dave Tong
Top 3 Videos viewed on 4488: A Ridge Blog in 2011?
1. Harvest 2011: Picking Lytton West
3. Harvest 2011: Jimsomare Chardonnay
Ok, enough lists. Onto our 2011 summary. We begin …
With January.
Seems so long ago. What on earth was happening in January of 2011? Well, it was a bit of the good and the bad. On the one hand, beloved actress Zsa Zsa Gabor had to have her leg amputated, and Roger Federer lost in the semis of the 2011 Australian Open, but on the other hand, I was auctioned by Nadia G!
How about February 2011? Well, another month of the good and the bad. One one hand, Tiger Woods was fined for spitting on a golf course. But conversely, The Ramones won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. So, all’s well that ends well. And at Ridge? Well, February 2011 saw the Monte Bello Hospitality Team go pruning, and of course, it was ZAP! And that was all good.
Which brings us to March. The month in which I enjoyed the greatest tasting experience of my entire life. The Monte Bello Assemblage Tasting. Did I care that Hillary Clinton was in Egypt? That Space Shuttle Discovery was making its final landing? That Coptic Christians and Muslims were at each other’s throats in Cairo? That Phil Collins retired? That the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Force was stepping down? Nah, didn’t even notice. I was making Monte Bello!
Which means I almost didn’t even wake up for April. But good thing I did! Otherwise, I would have missed Penelope Cruz getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! And I wouldn’t have known that Dennis Rodman was getting inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame! And heaven forfend if I wasn’t present and accounted for when they announced the guestlist for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton! And on top of all that, I wouldn’t have been there to celebrate the anniversary of The Judgement of Paris!!!
Things finally calmed down a bit in May. Not much going on. Osama Bin Laden was killed, and we hosted the Final Assemblage Tasting for the 2010 Monte Bello. But that was about it.
June was a whole different animal. Very emotional. There was some loss. I’m not gonna lie about it. We lost Peter Falk AND Clarence Clemons. That was hard to take. But there were new beginnings as well. We saw bloom on the mountain. That was beautiful. Samsara. The circle.
By July, we’d gotten our heads on straight again, and we were ready to rock. Everybody was ready. To rock, and to swing. The Arab Spring was rocking. The Queensland Reds of Australia were rocking (they defeated the Canterbury Crusaders of New Zealand 18-13 to win the Super Rugby championship). Jane Austen was rocking (A rare manuscript of an unfinished novel sold for 1.6 million dollars at auction!). Even Jürgen Klinsmann was rocking. He was named head coach of the United States men’s national soccer team. And Ridge Vineyards was rocking too. We rocked probably the hardest at Zinbo #1. That was some serious rocking. Zinfandel and BBQ. Yeah, that’s the rock. Let it rock, let it rock, let it rock. I want to rock. Rock and roll hootchie koo. I love rock n’ roll. For those about to rock. Rock you like a hurricane.
August is a funny month. You never can tell with August. Sometimes it’s groovy, sometimes it’s funky. It can have the funk, but it can also get in the groove. The 2011 rendition of August was mostly kind of funky. I mean, after all, dig this synchronicity. In the same month, Tim Pawlenty announced the end of his campaign for the Republican Party presidential nomination, and Jhala Nath Khanal resigned as the Prime Minister of Nepal! Crazy! And that’s not all! It only gets weirder! Dig this: Nick Ashford of Ashford & Simpson dies in the same month that Jerry Leiber of Leiber & Stoller dies! Crazy!!!!! And if that weren’t enough, both Lady Gaga and Katy Perry got banned by The Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China. Crazy!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately, things were pretty stable at Ridge Vineyards. In order to combat all that CRAZINESS out there, we relied on the consistency of a series; in this case, our Ten Questions with Paul Draper series. Something about checking in with Paul on a regular basis, all month long, felt soothing. He comforted us. He got us through.
By September, we were back in control. We knew what was going on, we were in the saddle. Sonya Thomas won the United States Chicken Wing Eating Championship without batting an eyelid. That New Zealand Emperor Penguin was back in the ocean. And Google+ hit the ground running. And as to us? Solid. We started the month with Fall Release Tastings at Monte Bello and Lytton Springs, and just kept on rocking in the free world after that. Rocking in the free world.
October was pretty crazy. There’s just no gettin’ around it. Things were nuts. The NBA went on lockout. Steve Jobs passed. Sarah Palin declined to throw her hat in the presidential ring. A swede won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Paul McCartney got married again. Wootton Bassett became Royal Wootton Bassett. And the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. S#*t was crazy. Here too. Harvest began on the mountain. Which was crazy.
November is recent enough that I feel I still remember it. I remember China launching the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft. I remember the 5.6 magnitude earthquake NNE of Shawnee, Oklahoma. I remember the resignation of Silvio Belusconi. And the sentencing of Dr. Conrad Murray. And most of all, I remember what I was thankful for.
Which brings us to December. The end of the year as we know it. And I feel wine.
And I hope that you do too!
On behalf of all of us at Ridge Vineyards, we thank you for an extraordinary 2011.
May you all have a safe, happy, and healthy 2012!
Cheers!
I mean, CHEERS!
‘Twas The Night Before: The Ballad Of Old Saint Wine, The Holiday Wine Elf
‘Twas the night before tomorrow
and all through the kitchen
not a bottle was decanted
not even the Lytton
And the wine rack was set
on the counter with care
in hopes that new bottles
soon would be there
Kids the world over
all snug in their beds
as visions of verticals
danced in my head
And mama with a zin,
(a magnum, not a fifth)
was trying to bribe me
to wrap up some gifts
When out on the lawn
there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the floor
to see what was the matter
Away to the window
to see what I’d find
I pulled on the cord
and opened the blinds
The moon on the breast
of the new-fallen snow
branches making shadows
like the prongs of an Ah So
When what, to my wondering
eyes should appear
But an American Oak barrel
pulled by 6 strong wine-deer
And a little old driver
on the barrel, supine
and I knew in a moment
it must be Saint Wine!
More rapid than pump-overs
the wine-deer they came
and he whistled and shouted
and called them by name
“Now Merlot, now Syrah,
now you too Chardonnay
On Zin, on Grenache,
and on Cabernet!
To the top of the porch,
to the top of the wall
now dash away, dash away
dash away all!”
So up to the house-top
the wine-deer, they flew
with that neutral oak barrel
and Old Saint Wine too!
And then in a twinkling
I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing
of each little hoof
As I drew in my head
and was turning around
down the chimney St. Wine
came with a bound
He was dressed all in grapeskins
from his head to his foot
and his tannins were tarnished
with ashes and soot
And a casebox of wine
he flung on his shoulder
A fine mix of vintages
from younger to older
His dimples, how merry
his eyes, such a blue
his teeth, once so white
now a purplish hue!
His moist little mouth
was open to speak
As his beard, white as snow
lined with thin purple streaks
The stump of a cigar
on his lip, balanced handily
with the smoke reaching upwards
like leaves in the canopy
He had a broad face
a little round belly
that shook when he laughed
like Cabernet jelly
He was chubby and plump
a right tipsy old elf
and I laughed when I saw him
in spite of myself
A wink of his eye
and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread
He hummed to himself
then, as if just to tempt me
he filled up the wine rack
‘til no slot was empty
And laying his finger
aside of his nose
and giving a nod
up the chimney he rose
He sprang to his barrel
to the team gave a sign
and away they all flew
like the dew on a vine
But I heard him exclaim
in the winter moonshine
A good wine to all,
and to all a good wine.
(written with both respect for, and apologies to, Clement Clarke Moore, the author of the original “The Night Before Christmas”)
The bottling line. Does it conjure anything for you? Me neither. At least, it didn’t used to, before I worked on one. Then when I did, for the first time, bottle, I thought it was mesmerizing. At first. Then, I thought it was tiring. Long, tiring, even kind of boring. It was too physical to be meditative, too repetitive to be interesting. So again, no conjuring. The bottling line. No resonance.
Then I received this picture …
The picture came from Will Thomas, our viticulturist up at Lytton Springs. This is a shot of the bottling line at Lytton; they’re bottling the Ponzo Zinfandel. And for some reason, it really struck me. The bottling line.
It occurred to me that there is something that happens on the bottling line that is completely, utterly unique amidst all the processes involved in the making of wine.
It is on the bottling line that wine — a lot of wine; gallons upon gallons upon gallons of it — transforms from wine in the grand abstract, to the very specific reality of YOUR bottle of wine. On the bottling line is where that grand mass of liquid, housed in some enormous tank, or spread out across a multitude of anonymous barrels, becomes YOUR personal bottle of wine. YOUR bottle of wine is born on the bottling line.
Who can know now what might happen to that bottle, what might become of it, what unforgettable experience or ritual it might play a role in? It might be the wine on the table at the restaurant you dine in on the night you ask your lover to become your spouse. It might be the first wine you taste in the first hours after your first child is born. It might be the first wine you serve with the first holiday dinner you cook the first year after your grandmother passes away. It might be the wine you pour on your father’s grave as they return him to the earth from whence he came. It might be the wine you drink to celebrate the 50th anniversary of your wedding. It might be the wine you give your son the night he becomes a father. It might be the wine your share with a best friend you reconnect with after 20 years of not talking. It might be the wine you drink with a great loaf of bread, an excellent hunk of cheese, and a really good book, all by yourself, on some beach somewhere, on some anonymous Sunday, some year, in some country, that is in fact one of the most pleasant days of your life.
That wine may have just been born on the bottling line.
EXTRA! EXTRA! Historic Vineyard Series Wines Available To Taste On Black Friday!
It’s becoming quite the tradition for us to do a little something special on Black Friday, that semi-infamous post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy that so regularly pocks the countenances of our collective social marketplaces.
Last year, we put on quite a delightful series of tastings (you can see a run-down on the 2010 Black Friday here: http://blog.ridgewine.com/2010/11/22/turn-black-friday-red/), and I think for all concerned it was a very welcome alternative to being trampled underfoot by a maddened gate-crashing mob storming the doors of their local Wal-Mart at 4am, in search of one last remaining copy of “Halo” or one last “Let’s Rock Elmo.”
This year will be no different!
You will have two choices, this:
Or this:
The choice seems clear to me.
In all seriousness, while avoiding the lunacy of Black Friday is certainly incentive enough, we actually have a much better reason for you to visit. As part of the private tastings on offer on Black Friday, we’ll be showcasing … wait for it, wait for it … two of our new, never-before released, Historic Vineyard Series wines! Ah, the volta …
Have you heard about these very special wines? If you’re a Ridge Vineyards Wine Club Member, you certainly have. And if you’re not a member, well, this might just be a really good chance to experience just why membership is so decidedly the grooviest of badges to affix to the cub scout or brownie outfit of your aesthetic life. Meaning, these very rare wines are only available to members, but for just one day, and one day only, we’re going to make them available for tasting to all who secure a reservation! And, if you’re a member, you’ll be able to purchase as well. And if not yet a member? Well …
Anyhow, just to back track a bit and give you the rundown on these wines, the gist of the story is this; courtesy of a long and educational engagement with our own unique history here on the Monte Bello Estate, we have been able to delve deeply into the pre-Ridge story, and part of what we’ve been able to do is not only identify the key families who first planted on our mountain, but also ascertain their stories, and the boundaries surrounding their original plantings. And with those families, lines, and properties properly identified, we’ve been able, in a sort of feat of viticultural gerrymandering, to conceptually redraw the lot lines on our property so as to make wines that hew to the original plantings, and bottle them under the names of the original families! It’s quite a unique addition to our primary bottlings from this property (the Monte Bello and Estate Cabernets), and we’re very excited about this extraordinary new series.
2009 is the very first vintage of our Historic Vineyard Series wines on offer, and this Black Friday will be the first “public” opportunity to taste two of them, the 2009 Klein Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2009 Torre Ranch Merlot. This is truly a tasting opportunity not to be missed, as these wines couldn’t possibly be more rare, more significant, more cachet-laden, or more delicious! Did I mention these are also single-varietal wines! That’s right, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, 100% Merlot. How’s that for rare and special?
Here is a bit of history of the two families:
Torre
In 1890, John Torre, a successful Nevada cattle rancher purchased one hundred acres on Monte Bello Ridge, planted vines, and built a barn atop a cellar dug into the hillside. In 1908, John’s nephew Vincent and wife, Dominica, left Nevada to run the vineyards and winery at Monte Bello, acquiring the property upon John’s death in 1913. The Torre winery produced mostly zinfandel, selling it for shipment by rail to New York.
Prohibition closed the Torre winery in 1920 and the vines died out over time. After several changes of ownership, William Short acquired the property and replanted to cabernet sauvignon and a small amount of chardonnay. By 1959, Short, weary of the work, sold the land to four scientists from Stanford Research Institute.
Initially, the partners intended to sell the grapes, but one of them, Dave Bennion, made a half-barrel of wine from the 1959 harvest—his first foray into winemaking. Its quality convinced the partners to re-bond the old winery, and to undertake the venture that would become Ridge Vineyards.
Dave, with his partners, went on to make seven commercial vintages (1962-1968). Paul Draper—impressed by the exceptional 1962 and 1964—joined the group as winemaker in 1969. Paul assisted with that vintage and made the 1970 and 1971 on his own, the last to be made in the old Torre Winery.
Today the oldest vines are those planted by William Short in 1949. The old Torre winery building now houses the Monte Bello tasting room and group facilities.
–
Klein
Pierre Klein (1855-1922) was an Alsatian who came to California in 1875. For years, as manager of the restaurant in San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel, he championed the best of California wines. In 1888 he purchased 160 acres on Monte Bello Ridge (currently known as the Jimsomare Ranch.)
Determined to produce a fine claret in the style of the Médoc, he planted Bordeaux varieties on their own roots. In the early 1890s, he began selling his Mira Valle wines to several San Francisco restaurants; in 1895, he entered his wine in the Bordeaux Exposition, where he took an honorable mention At the Paris Exposition of 1900, he won two gold medals—one for his Claret, the other for his “Grand Vin”—known as the “Château Lafitte of America,”
When phylloxera attacked his vines after the turn of the century, he did not replant. Retiring in 1910, he sold the property in 1913. In 1936, it was purchased by the Schwabacher family of San Francisco who renamed the property “Jimsomare” from their names Jim, Sophie, and Marie.
Although Klein’s Bordeaux varietals had died out, a small nineteenth-century zinfandel vineyard survived. Ridge bought those grapes, and made its first Jimsomare Zinfandel in 1968. Ridge convinced the family to replant the Bordeaux varietals, and a small amount of chardonnay. In exchange, Ridge provided rootstock, and a promise to purchase the grapes. The first cabernet bottling was in 1978.
By the late 1990s, the Schwabachers no longer wished to manage day-to-day farming, and signed a long-term lease with Ridge. Today, Ridge farms the original Klein property as part of its Monte Bello Estate.
–
And if all that isn’t enough to pique your curiosity, I’m now going to get going on some tasting notes, to hopefully & proverbially whet your viticultural whistle as regards these extremely rare and historic, limited-production, member-only, single-varietal offerings:
2009 Ridge Vineyards Torre Ranch Merlot
Tremendous post-decanting development on aromatic display; at first whiff, the nose is dominated by strong baker’s chocolate notes, with only minor hints of peppercorn and tarragon, but as the wine airs out, fascinatingly strong strains of fig and amber liqueur emerge. The bowl-view bespeaks a fair amount of girth to come; big, slow-moving legs languidly taking their time down the bowl-sides (raise up mama, get yer big leg offa mine!), and first taste does nothing to dispel this foreshadowing; the wine is mouth-filling to the nth, with strongly granular tannins on full display, and a good wallop of low-tone fruit spreading out all across the front-palate. Layered under this hearty spread of harvest berry and plum lays a layer of beurre noir and toasty caramel, and across the top, a slightly minty, cool-climate herbaceousness. The wine is still quite young, no doubt about it, and structure is still the dominate component, but again, with air, there is a good array of fruit notes beginning to show their colors as well. Mirroring the color, which is decidedly concentrated and rich, the fruit notes are dense as well; not at all extracted, mind you, but expressing their collective essences with a vengeance. This is a lot of wine in the glass, and a fascinating inversion of the Merlot-Cab relationship; here, the Merlot is structure, depth, tannin, and concentration, bringing muscularity and girth to the table, albeit in a broodingly romantic package. A most baroque wine, this is viticultural poetry of the most saturated kind … Purple prose-ish, if you’ll forgive the pun …
2009 Ridge Vineyards Klein Cabernet Sauvignon
Unbelievable aromatics; the quintessentiallity of cool-climate cab in action; minerality, spice, herbality, spice, percolation, spice, and spice! And a singular relationship between color and body; if anything, denser and more vibrant than the merlot, yet swifter of leg and less-viscous of body; rivulets a-runnin’ (brooks run into the ocean, ocean run into the sea!). Extremely elegant mouthfeel, with acidity on display for days upon days upon days; such vibrancy and bounce for a California solo-varietal cab! The fruit here is definitely high in tone, lots of both sweet and sour cherries, strong pluot notes, and a bit of young raspberry as well. The tannins here are of the extremely refined sort; soft, supple, resolved, and covered, and the mid-palate structure retains its bounce while spreading its fruit in a comparatively wider arc. The finish is a deceptive one; at first swallow, the youth of the wine seems almost restrictive as regards retaining some flavor in the aftermath, but lo and behold, with 5 or 10 seconds of wait-time, a delicious lingering decadence starts to emerge, perhaps hinting at the richening to come. This is a wine with a lot of growing still to do, no question, but it’s expressive and buoyant now, and exciting beyond compare. It’s easy to see how the ying and yang of cab and merlot from this mountain work together, but there is something sweetly, intimately refreshing about seeing these varietals in their solo and separate fleshes; they have a home-ness to them that, for all their grace and power, the assemblages of Monte Bello and Estate don’t necessarily evidence; this is the farmgirl or boy that you fall in love with for their innocence, their purity, their honor and their integrity. They don’t flash, but they’re honest, and there is no more reassuring lap to rest your weary head in.
To secure a reservation for these very special tastings, at either our Lytton Springs or Monte Bello Estates, please follow the following links:
As an alternative, you can also e-mail us at reservations@ridgewine.com.
And last but not least, here is a bit of video documenting a tasting session of these wines earlier today:
Paul Draper
1- In 1976, the famous Paris tasting showed the world the potential of California and the New World to produce wines that could compete with the most famous French wines. In the second edition of Paris tasting in 2006, Monte Bello 1971, 35 years old, was elected the best wine of the tasting. Was this victory a proof that California wines are not only good but can age as well?
After the original Paris tasting in 1976, comments were made in France that with 30 years the Bordeaux wines would come into their own full potential while the California wines would have completely faded. When the original tasting was repeated in London and in California in 2006, the 1971 Monte Bello came in first place 18 points ahead of the second place wine. This was clear evidence that some California wines could age as well or better than the best Bordeaux wines.
***Do you have a question for Paul? Let us know! wine@ridgewine.com***
(“10 Questions for Paul Draper” questions composed by Rodrigo Mainardi of Mistral, Brazlian Distributor for Ridge Vineyards)
If you’re a part of the wine industry, or if you follow it, it’s hard to get away from the debate; the alcohol level debate. Everywhere you turn, it’s a dominating topic of conversation.
A recent example is a column (Decanter Magazine, September 2011) by the famed English wine writer Oz Clarke, which was summed up by Decanter’s own Adam Lechmere as follows:
There is no style revolution in California: low acid, velvet tannins and high alcohol is what Americans want from their wine and Californian winemakers will continue to feed that need.
There was, predictably, a whole host of responses to the article (and to Mr. Lechmere’s summary!), including a notable offering from Steve Heimoff (Wine Enthusiast), who wrote the following:
I’ve been saying it for years: this supposed “trend” toward lower alcohol wine is largely a fiction invented and perpetuated by writers who (a) wish it were true and (b) need something sexy to write about in their columns and on their blogs.
All of which got me thinking of an admittedly tangential, but certainly related question: what IS high alcohol?
Is it the 14% cut-off, with “high” being above and “low” being below? This certainly seems to be the most commonly deployed barometer, but is it appropriate?
Honestly, I don’t think so, because I think “high” and “low” are relative terms, and what is high for one varietal, for example, may not be so high for another varietal. To simply say that if it’s over 14% ABV it’s a high-alcohol wine is, to my mind, a fairly meaningless assessment, and one doomed to inaccuracy, because it’s devoid of context.
As far as I’m concerned, the question should be, is the wine balanced? If you’re noticing too much of the alcohol, and not enough of the other components, then it’s a high-alcohol wine. This can happen at 13.2%, and it can happen at 15.2%. Conversely, if the wines wears its alcohol well, and is integrated and harmonious, then the wine is accordingly a balanced wine, and not high-alcohol at all. This can happen at 13.2%, and it can happen at 15.2%.
Consider the Ridge Vineyards Geyserville, long hailed as one of the most consistently balanced, elegant zinfandels California has ever produced. (“Year after year, Ridge makes some of the most polished, refined, and beautifully balanced zinfandels in California.” – Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible)
I took a look at the past thirty years or so of Geyserville, and came up with some interesting tidbits. For example:
1996 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville, 14.9% ABV
“A powerful wine that manages to wear its alcohol gracefully” – excerpted from a Stephen Tanzer review
And from Wine & Spirits Magazine: “This is the Ridge zinfandel of the vintage and certainly one of the very best overall. Well-farmed old-vine fruit, combined with Paul Draper’s informed winemaking, provide a supple and elegant zin. Because the fruit isn’t as dense as in some vintages, the wine has a lightness and grace to it that is ideal with food. It’s dark red in color with vivid aromas of oak spice, pepper, venison, bacon, plum and wild berries, the palate supple with firm acidity. Not overly complex, just beautifully balanced and complete.”
And from Wine Spectator: “… Supple and harmonious …”
Graceful? Supple? Lightness and Grace? Harmonious? At 14.9% ABV? Go figure …
Now, take the 1998 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville. It clocked in at 14.1% ABV. And yet here is Robert Parker, the purported Godfather of Support for the “ripe” style:
“One of Ridge’s classic efforts, the 1998 Geyserville (74% Zinfandel, 15% Petite Sirah, 10% Carignan, and 1% Mataro) possesses Bordeaux-like complexity and elegance…This classy, elegant, restrained, yet authoritatively rich Zinfandel should be consumed over the next 5-6 years.”
Hmmm …
Now, let’s jump all the way back to 1982! What did the critics say then? Well, Wine Enthusiast called the nose “overripe.” It was 12.6% ABV! But, lest you go thinking, “Aha! See! That’s the way it used to be done, lower alcohol!”, jump back even further to 1978, and you’ll find the Geyserville coming in at 14.9% ABV, and being described by the very same Wine Enthusiast reviewer as: “Deep, complex … almost Burgundian style.”
The point being that, while the alcohol levels vary notably (something the reviewer notes, insomuch as he calls the 82 “low alcohol” and the 78 “high alcohol”), the quality remains consistent, and balance is paramount.
In its many-decade history, the Geyserville has been as low as the low 13s, and as high as the high 14s, and it has accrued praise and appreciation throughout, and given great joy and pleasure to those who have tasted it.
So is Geyserville a “high-alcohol” wine?
Don’t bother answering, says me, because it’s the wrong question.
—
And on another note, Steve Heimoff made an interesting comment to his own blog post (in response to an earlier comment in the feed); when he wrote:
All I’m saying is that, from my vantage point of tasting nearly 5,000 California wines a year, I don’t see them moving away from high alcohol, especially the Cabernets.
Which of course got me thinking of the Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello.
So I did the same sort of thing as I did with the Geyserville; I went looking back through the long history of Monte Bello, to see what I could discover about alcohol levels. Dig this:
The 1970 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello was 13.5% ABV. The 1962 (the first Monte Bello ever produced) was 12.4% ABV. The median there is about 13% ABV. The 2007 Monte Bello (current vintage) is 13.1%ABV.
Interesting.
Now, are we the exception to the rule? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I’m pretty sure it’s not the Monte Bello that Steve (or Oz) are talking about. And I’m certainly not presenting the above as any sort of challenge to their points.
Rather, it’s just another way of approaching my primary thesis, which is that, at the end of the day, I truly believe we should be debating balance first and foremost, not alcohol levels. ABV is certainly a legitimate sub-category in any debate about any given wine (as are fruit, minerality, structure, spice, acidity, etc.), but it’s just that, a sub-category, and nothing more or less.
Now, I should disclaim all the above by saying I recognize that Oz Clarke and Steve Heimoff are talking about something a little different; what they’re essentially talking about is the continuing dominance of a style despite a sea of rhetoric seemingly indicating a sea change in another direction; their point seems to be that it is everything from wishful thinking to out and out hypocrisy to believe that the style in question is in fact changing.
This is not what I’m on about. They may in fact be right. But my concern is the focus of the debate itself, which I believe may need some re-framing; getting away from primarily obsessing over alcohol levels, and the question of high vs. low alcohol wines, and focusing instead on the question of balance.
—
And on yet another note, I think we also need to be careful about getting too cynical about our wine buyers out there.
As wine producers, I think we can actually happily show great respect for, and faith in, our consumers and their palates. They may not all understand secondary malolactic fermentaion, or know what the word “veraison” means, or be able to discuss the difference between pad and membrane filtration methods, or define “brix levels,” but they can tell balanced from unbalanced, on a visceral if not always analytical level. And that’s a great thing. And sure, they might buy the “fruit bombs” sometimes, but they buy lots of other styles too, and that’s also a great thing. Their ability to discern and to experiment, to learn and to change, to vary and to sample; this is what keeps us all in business. And believe you me, they can spot a good wine, and they can spot a not-so-good wine, and the difference is balance. Balance is what give a wine its magic; that unnameable certain something that makes one wine an “excitement wine,” and another one not. And I truly believe that, in the end, that’s what wine consumers are responding to.
Balance. It’s what makes a wine sing.
I see it every day in our tasting rooms. I see it in their faces, that slight and subtle, inward-looking smile that twinkingly emerges when a magic wine hits their palate. They may not always know the what, where, how, and why of why the wine tastes the way it does, but they can sense it when it’s good.
And I say it’s good, when it’s balanced.
It’s exactly one month until Cabernet Day. That is to say, #CabernetDay!
#CabernetDay!
The second annual.
It’s an international phenomenon, a worldwide celebration of all things Cabernet, taking place across all social media platforms.
In Bangladesh? Join in! Buenos Aires? Can’t wait to chat! Baltimore? See you on Facebook! Blaenau Ffestiniog? I’ll be looking for your tweets!
Ridge Vineyards is ALL IN on this one, boyos and birds!
Ever heard of a lil’ ol’ wine called Monte Bello? You can bet we’ll be doing #CabernetDay. And dig how we’ll be doing it …
On September 1st, at both of our estate locations (Lytton Springs and Monte Bello) we’ll be offering special by-appointment seated tastings of not only a three-vintage vertical of our Estate Cabernet (2004, 2005, & 2006), but a THREE-DECADE VERTICAL OF MONTE BELLO! And not just any three-decade vertical, mind you. We’ll be tasting the 1985 Monte Bello, the 1995 Monte Bello, and …. drum roll … the 2001 Monte Bello! Yup, the vintage that just got a 99 POINT RATING FROM ROBERT PARKER!
Listen, I’m biased, and I admit it. There is a reason I work for Ridge Vineyards. But I’m telling you, with total objectivity front and center, you’re simply out of your mind if you miss this. This is one of those rare tasting opportunities that just don’t come along that often, and I really, really, really hope that you can come.
Now, of course I won’t really think you’re insane if you miss this. I just really think you should come taste these wines with us. I really do.
So, on to the important part. To reserve your place at the tasting table, just click here.
There, you’re done.
In fact, you’re already here. It’s already the 1st. You’re already seated at the table. Your host is pouring the first wine into your glass. Angels are out in broad daylight, plucking soothing melodies on harps of gold outside the window. The sun’s soft finger is lightly brushing the back of your neck. All over the world, people are laying down their guns. The markets are surging. The wind whispers your name, and you say “Yes, it is I.” Somewhere a puppy is born.
If the puppy and the angels and the 99-point rating didn’t get you, here is a look at the wines we’ll be offering:
1985 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello
Excellent umami aromatics! Plus, lovely wafts of cedar and pipe tobacco, with a hint of boysenberries. Meticulously elegant point-of-entry, laying soft on the tip of the tongue and skipping into the cheeks with some nice acidity and a touch of sweetly, modestly covered tannin. Good dark fruit mid-palate, with some rusticity and earth rumbling through. Not particularly weighty; an easy sipper. The finish shows a bit of the age, but no degradation, just nice, mature, pure and quality Cabernet fruit. As gentle as it gets, and fascinating accordingly.
1995 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello
Rich, concentrated, compact and compressed nose, a muscular jolt of big red fruit, cassis, anise, fig, and leather. Huge at the front, taking up every available space at point-of-entry. Unctuous and lush, a whole lot of wine on offer. Mid-palate opens up and shows some cherry and mixed red berries, and spreads a plush quilt of viscosity seamed with fine-grained tannins and a lingering hint of eucalyptal herbaceousness. The finish is intensely structured; amazing for a wine that’s been in bottle nearly 15 years. Almost impossibly youthful still, but with a load of meat on the bone.
2001 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello
Good lord, what a lot of wine! This is an intense, intense vintage; the nose is positively loaded! Ripe, rich, sweet, cola and licorice and blackberry pie! The mouthfeel is just about as viscous as the aromatics would lead you to believe, with a luxuriant point-of-entry and a multi-tiered middle that, despite all the decadence, ripeness, and viscosity, still manages to showcase the herbs, spice, and forestation of a classic Monte Bello. The finish is strong on blue fruit and nice dusky tannins, but overall, the wine is still almost mind-bendingly young. Perfect proof that big doesn’t mean sabotaging balance; this is every bit as graceful as, say, the 1985 described above, but this is a bigger, wilder rendition.
If you’d like to see Eric Baugher’s recent tasting notes on this vintage (Eric is our VP of winemaking here at Monte Bello), well, good luck!
The important things to note in there are words like “Fresh, alive, layered, complex,” and “youthful/delicious,” and “young and capable +15-20 more years.”
Anyhow, the amazing thing about the whole #CabernetDay phenomenon is that it really and truly does play out as envisioned; we participated last year, and it was truly remarkable. People from all over the world, literally, tasting their favorite Cabernets at the same time, sharing their thoughts on-line, engaging in dialogue, talking. This is what wine does. It makes you talk. With other people. About pleasant things. Like wine.
Seriously, every liquid indulgence has its effect; beer makes you sleepy and want to play pinball. Tequila makes you quiet and want to hit people with pool cues. Vodka makes you dance way too much, and not well, and then completely forget that you danced way too much, and not well. Martinis make you have more martinis, taking you swiftly from sophisticated to unconscious. Absinthe makes you see dead people. But wine? Ah, wine. Wine makes you nice. And comfortable. Wine makes you feel like cooking, and sharing your cooking with other people. Wine makes you not only tell good stories, but listen to them as well. No one ever opened a newspaper and read of a murder-suicide committed after drinking a bottle of single-vineyard Cabernet. No, wine makes you congenial, and poetic. Wine makes you like music, and bread. Wine makes people love people.
This is what happens on #CabernetDay. People love people.
And now, with our new and very special #CabernetDay tastings, you can love Cabernet and people both, and you can do so both virtually, and in proximity.
Please consider yourselves invited.
You’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!
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