Ridge Monte Bello Revisited: 1968 – 2012

If the United States had a formal classification of estates, Ridge would be the equivalent of a First Growth. Since the late 1960s, Ridge has produced world-class wines that can compete with the best from anywhere. Longtime winemaker Paul Draper recently announced his retirement from Ridge after a storied career during which he has become one of the most eloquent ambassadors of American wine this country has ever seen. Readers who want to learn more about Draper's history at Ridge may want to revisit my article Ridge Monte Bello: Past, Present and Future published last year.

I tasted a number of the wines in this article with Draper and his team, including winemaker Eric Baugher, vineyard manager David Gates and newly-appointed CEO Mark Vernon last fall in New York during what felt very much like a farewell tour for Draper, although it was not announced as such. Ridge’s long-term organizational stability and the transition to the new team, which I have been able to watch unfold over many years, stands in stark contrast to the norm in California, where winemakers, vineyard managers and executives change jobs every few years. Of course, since 1986 Ridge has been owned by Otsuka Pharmaceutical of Japan, where business plans often span a hundred years or more. I also had a chance to taste a few older vintages during two visits to the property earlier this year. The 1970 and 1974 were both from my cellar.

One of Ridge’s barrel rooms

For several decades Ridge has represented the values of traditional, non-interventionalist winemaking, which Draper describes as basically doing nothing. Of course, it is not as simple as that. One of the attributes of Monte Bello is its ability to ripen fruit that gives birth to intense, ageworthy wines at relatively low alcohols. Only once has Monte Bello surpassed 14% alcohol (2001), and while I personally do not put much stock in a single metric as a measure of quality, Draper’s pursuit of what can be described as a more classic, lower alcohol style is no doubt a big part of the legacy he leaves to the current team. 

One of the shifts over the last 20 years or so has been a transition from Ozark oak, which was used predominantly through 1995, to Appalachian oak, which became dominant around 2005 and now constitutes virtually all the oak used in the Monte Bello. Baugher describes Ozark oak as having more spicy and herbaceous signatures and Appalachian oak as sweeter and more exotic. Tasting the 1995 and 2005 side-by-side makes for an interesting comparison of the influence of cooperage.