Ridge Monte Bello 1993-2013 - A Timeless Anomaly

Many others have written definitive pieces on the many climatic, geological and ‘pre-industrial’ winemaking details that make Monte Bello a singular site and such a distinctive wine.

One of the most in depth and my personal favorite is a 2018 piece by William Kelley in the Wine Advocate. (For subscribers, link in footnotes)

My goal is not to repeat their work, but simply to digest and reflect upon what I learned from these wines and the themes I took away from the tasting as a whole.

Tasting these wines in flights, where grape is (essentially) held constant, revealed so much about the ability of singular sites to transcend varietal constructs and association.

With age, air and time, these wines barely resembled ‘textbook’ Cabernet.

This was a tasting of singular wines, each speaking of a singular vineyard, expressed through the aesthetic vision of Ridge’s classic values. Here, grape variety becomes secondary. These were anything but ‘textbook’.

Ultimately these wines were about place more than anything else, and I couldn’t help but be humbled by their majesty and how clearly they spoke about the different elements that make Monte Bello one of the most special vineyards in the world.

A commitment to single vineyard winemaking

As early as the 1965 California Cabernet Sauvignon, labels were printed with ‘Monte Bello Grapes’ and ‘grown in select vineyards (usually identified on the label)’. This choice was made even while the ‘Monte Bello’ trademark was still controlled by Osea Perrone’s Montebello Wine Company at the time.¹

In that same vein, Ridge also labeled Geyserville as a single vineyard wine from its first vintage in 1966. Though made as a sweet wine at the time, Geyserville was also one of the first wines in post prohibition California to emphasize the importance of old vines (planted in the 19th century).²

From these two examples it’s clear that this commitment to single vineyard winemaking has been core to Ridge’s values since it‘s founding in 1962. This drive to highlight and harness the best qualities their sites requires an approach that emphasizes individual difference over stylistic continuity, which in itself necessitates an intimate understanding of each individual vineyard.

Ridge is often praised for its unwavering commitment to their classic sense of structure, balance and proportion.

From the wines I’ve tasted and the literature available, I understand this to be their aesthetic preference, born of a legacy of their Founder’s classic ‘pre-industrial’ benchmarks and Paul Draper’s stewardship. This also happens to be an approach that is most congruent and complementary to their commitment to single vineyard winemaking. I believe this is no coincidence.

I find it fascinating that Ridge staked their claim on the merits of single vineyard winemaking at a time when much of America so clearly valued the consistency of brand names, ie. generic styles of ‘Hearty Burgundy’, or ‘Chablis’, more than site specificity.

To see the value in single vineyard, even single block wines, to understand, delineate and define vineyards on their personalities and soil types, as early as the 60s, is remarkable.

With prohibition in such recent memory at the time of their founding, Ridge must have been important pioneers in rebuilding a collective memory and shared language in order for Americans to understand the value of domestic single vineyard wines.

As someone who is planting new vineyards at high altitude, in a region where none existed before, Ridge’s pioneering example is particularly inspiring to me.

How did the wines taste?

All wines, double decanted off sediment at 9:30, first flight poured at 12:45. Each wine was tasted in two rounds, pouring half of each bottle in two flights of three, before returning to finish the second half.

Flight one - 93 horizontal, all quite different

1993 Horseshoe/Young Foster (Monte Bello) - Advanced Tasting Program ‘ATP’ 12.4% abv

From the Ridge website - “In 1993, two of Monte Bello’s smallest blocks, West Horseshoe and Young Foster, ripened at the same time. They were fermented together and pressed at twenty-five days. The wine was very tannic, so we fined early with twelve egg whites per barrel, and a year later with three. Intensely Monte Bello in flavor and character, this was our favorite of the wines not included in the estate bottling.”³

Upon first pour, the wine shows a little bit of VA atop vivid cranberry and strawberry. Almost brunello-like at first.

With food and particularly the meltingly tender soy braised deer tendon, the wine transforms, singing of muddled strawberries. This is super lifted, pure, almost Burgundian now that it's lost its edge of volatility. Stunning, floral even, which is a quality I really do not associate with Cabernet. The tannin tactility is beautifully evocative of chalk dust and even finer than the Monte Bello of the same vintage, which amplifies the sense of high toned elegance. Fined with 12 egg whites per barrel. It’s clear that this feeling of floral, red fruited purity speaks of limestone lift and altitude more than the combination of grapes per se.

2nd round - This has retained high toned lift but has added layers of black truffle, earth, leather savory umami laden perfume and depth. This is the most complete, delicious and detailed wine of the day. The historic vines may well be better in 20 years, but at this moment, this is at another level.

1993 Jimsomare - 100% Cabernet Sauvignon (lowest section of the Monte Bello Estate)

Advanced Tasting Program ‘ATP’ 13.4% abv

More incense, more tobacco, more capsicum, darker, earthier, more blackcurrant, black plum depth than the previous wine. Notably sweeter fruit, but still so restrained. This sense of darker, rounded and more generous fruit really speaks of the lower altitude and warmer microclimate. Very integrated and complete.

More mineral and elegant as we return to the second half of the bottle, but still the darkest fruited and shows most capsicum, with the highest alcohol of the flight at 13.4%, but has gained in added lift, energy and tension which carries the depth and generosity of fruit beautifully.

1993 Monte Bello - 86% CS 7% Merlot 7% PV 12.9% abv

Really lifted, red fruited, reminding me of the last glass of the previous bottle I had in January of this year. The coconut/lactone edge of oak is much quieter and integrated, the early double decant was a wise choice.

Wonderfully supple, dense yet lifted, with a wonderful continuity to the Horseshoe/Young Foster in its lifted purity, more redcurrant than the strawberry and floral profile of the former, with just the subtlest hint of lactone coconut and vanilla that lifts the red fruit without speaking on its own.

At the end of my first glass just the subtlest edge of capsicum, leather and tobacco. California sunshine in the suppleness of the fruit, but the combination of high, /tense acid and super fine, densely chalky tannin tactility, the subtle savory umami is so unique to the specificities of Monte Bello geologically and in terms of altitude.

Returning to the second half of the bottle, the wine is much the same, but shows a greater edge of sweet spice, and even less lactone imprint.

Flight two

2004 Monte Bello - 76% CS 13% Merlot 8% PV 3% CF 13.2% abv

Lovely, really has developed a sense of giving, layered complexity since the monolithic bottle I last had in 2018.

Redcurrant, cranberry, cassis, tobacco, leather, earth, subtle capsicum edge. This hits high and low notes beautifully. Sweeter, darker, riper than the 93 Monte Bello and Horseshoe/Young Foster as is expected, but still only clocks in at 13.2%. Slightly rounder but still so classic in its proportion. Very long, very perfumed. This is also getting more and more lifted with air.

Second round shows an even greater sense of high toned lift. The plush weight and sweet spice have softened and this has moved more and more into the red fruit spectrum, incredibly pure. When the 93 Horseshoe label writes that it has an “intense Monte Bello flavor”, I’m beginning to see that the association is one of lifted redcurrant, raspberry, floral, super bright and perfumed limestone driven profile. The oak is totally almost totally integrated, just a whisper on the finish and retronasal aromatics.

2005 ‘The Barrel’ - Single Barrel Selection of Monte Bello by Summergate FIne Wine 13.4%

More high toned red fruit lift from first pour compared to the 04, more proportion of redcurrant to black, no black plum, less fleshy, beautifully chalky, fine tannin.

Though the alcohol might be .2% higher than the 04, this feels lighter on its feet, brighter and more energetic. Cranberry, raspberry, more and more high toned with each sip. A bit leaner than the 04, so the tannins are a little less enveloped, but adds to the sense of energy and posture.

2013 Historic Vines Montebello 100% CS 12.6%

Immediately shows the most depth and density of the flight, with the highest acidity as well. Being youngest (but not in vine age), the structure is most obvious of all the wines today, tightly wound, showing less fruit generosity and flesh. But remarkably, the sense of majesty is undeniable and still shines clearly through the intensity of structure. This reminds me of the most old school of old school Bordeaux in its proportion and sensibility (rather than flavor per se).

Just starting to unwind a tiny bit with the second round of pours, giving more crystallinity and clarity of fruit.

This ‘historic vines’ is now starting to open in the same way as the Horseshoe, adding black truffle, leather and earth while the detail of red and black fruit continues to lift and grow. With each minute, the core remains while the sense of range expands, both in high tones and savory depth. This is amazing.

Still the most dense, most tightly wound but the level of detail is pretty absurd.

Dessert

1978 Ridge Late Harvest Zin, Dusi Ranch

A sweet finish to our lunch, another single vineyard expression from Ridge, but this time not from Monte Bello.

Beautiful fresh and dried orange peel, orange blossom, orange marmalade, honeyed peach, dried apricot, strawberry, dried rose, rose oil and rose hip. The realism of dried rose is incredible. Black tea, lapsang and pu’er like subtle smoky and fermented umami.

Bright, super fresh tangy acidity, so much brightness and generosity of fresh fruit, dried floral detail, honeyed depth, citrus peel and essential oil and savory complexity all at once.

With chicken emerges an edge of Chinese salted, preserved fruit - Huamei (dried plum) and Chen pi (sun dried mandarin peel) emerge, lending a depth of sweet, spiced, preserved fruit umami that is incredible and deeply delicious.

What did I learn?

Many wines of the world are no more than their technical sheets - grape variety, alcohol level, winemaking notes, soil type, climate. There’s no why, no purpose, no real vision for what is possible. As a result, these wines are sold in the same fashion as many cars, computers and phones, described only as a list of attributes.

Then there are wines and wineries that are places unto themselves, that are so original, so singular that they transcend grape and the greater region.

Rayas, Clos Rougeard, Keller’s GGs, Auvenay’s Sous Châtelet, Château Simone, Coulee de Serrant pre 1990 and Ridge Monte Bello. There are others, but these are the first that come to mind.

Certainly, these wines are rare and have come to be associated with immense prestige and social value, but this is not what matters.

Rayas is unlike anywhere else in Châteauneuf, and wouldn’t be what it is without its sandy soils, multiple expositions and cooling forest shelter.

Similarly, Monte Bello is “certainly unusual, even in the context of the chaotic geology associated with the California coastline. Lifted up by powerful tectonic forces some 15 million years ago, the Santa Cruz Mountains reveal a faulted and folded geological jumble of bewildering complexity, neatly bisected by the San Andreas fault. Limestone is unusual in California, and Ridge’s team believes it is an important part of what makes this site special.”⁴

Between these vintages of Monte Bello, their shared imprint was one of elegance and purity - a thread of finesse, intensity without heaviness, classic proportion and structure, connecting these wines of varying maturity.

Shaped by altitude and ocean proximity, Monte Bello’s combination of cool climate and limestone geology, and its resultantly and unusually low pH, spoke clearly in each wine through the tasting.

Regardless of age, each wine shared a variations of lifted, high toned redcurrant and raspberry over quieter cassis with perfumed floral elegance; their bright, energizing acidities buttressed by a spine of ultra fine chalk dust tannin tactility. These could only be Monte Bello.

As William Kelley writes, wines like these require both singular terroir and also the desire and will to create something totally original and unlike anything else.

Ridge’s commitment to single vineyard winemaking from their first vintage in 1962, was and is a testament to that desire and will. No wine in California transcends notions of varietal and regional archetypes more so than Monte Bello.

To me, Rayas, Clos Rougeard, Monte Bello and all these other wines represent the intersection of a set of unique terroir conditions with the desire and understanding of how to harness that potential, to create something totally unto itself.

Such is the singularity of these wines that the identities of place and producer bleed and blend into one another. Though they make many other special wines of place, Ridge is Monte Bello, and Monte Bello is Ridge.

This tasting helped me piece together ideas that had been bouncing around my head for the past few years.

At Miao Lu, we have a set of terroir conditions I have not seen anywhere else in the world. I got that sense from when we first started doing site selection, and that feeling was confirmed in the first experimental wines we made last year.

I have never worked anywhere, Burgundy, Australia, New Zealand, where skin and seed tannins were ripe at 10.5 percent potential alcohol. The cool mountain air, the intense high altitude sun, our unique limestone and basalt mix combine to create a ripening curve unlike anywhere else.

But our place is so much more than simply a sum of its altitude, soil types and climate characteristics.

That feeling came to me in our first wines. There is an alpine tranquility, crystalline purity, weightless lift and a soaring aromatic register that I believe is unique in the world of wine. I feel one could plant other grape varieties and that same sense would speak though the wine in a similar way.

From the moment I tasted our first wines, I knew from then on that all our choices in the vineyard and cellar must be made to maximize that very particular sense of place.

Monte Bello, Rayas, Clos Rougeard, Keller, these examples are what I hope and dream for Miao Lu to become - not in style or flavor, but to become wines that are unlike any other, that transcend varietal and regional archetypes, wines that could only come from our place.

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¹ https://www.ridgewine.com/about/news/a-deep-dive-into-the-ridge-label/

² https://www.ridgewine.com/about/news/ridge-geyserville-40-wines-changed-way-drink/

³ https://www.ridgewine.com/wines/1993-horseshoe-young-foster-cabernet-sauvignon/

⁴ https://www.robertparker.com/articles/BWLkmwfpKBtAB55bu/usa-california-central-coast-ridge-monte-bello-1964-2017

⁵ 1965 Label Image from: http://www.gangofpour.com/bree/ridge/index.html