2017 Monte Bello

I tasted more wines than ever at Ridge this year. Not that I am complaining, as this collection is jam-packed with fabulous wines that will delight Ridge fans. Mild weather with no heat spikes created conditions for even ripening in 2018. As I have already written previously, 2018 is an absolutely magical vintage for Sonoma County. The 2018 Zinfandel and Zinfandel-based wines are off the charts gorgeous, with a level of purity I am not sure I have seen before. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, 2018 yielded wines that are gracious and silky, but also a bit restrained. Ridge’s 2017s are shaping up to be magnificent. It was a cold, wet year for much of the growing season. Whereas some regions in California struggled under the Labor Day heat spikes, Ridge really needed that final burst of heat to get ripe. The 2017s, the reds in particular, are breathtaking. Lastly, the 2019 Monte Bello is a wonderfully suggestive wine. Will all the 2019s be as compelling?

A visit to Ridge is always a highlight to any trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Among other things, Ridge keeps a fairly extensive library of older wines, some of which later become re-releases, which provides a great opportunity to see how some of the flagship wines develop over time. Speaking specifically about the wines from the Santa Cruz Mountains, Winemaker Eric Baugher commented "2017 was a really cool vintage until those Labor Day heat spikes. Frankly, we needed that burst of heat to get fully ripe up here." As for the wines, they are truly beautiful across the board. In whites, readers will find a new Grenache Blanc from the Adelaida estate in Paso Robles. The 2017 Chardonnay Estate is an intriguing pre-cursor to the Monte Bello Chardonnay, which is not released yet. The 2017 Zinfandel and Zinfandel-based wines are all incredibly delicious, with Lytton Springs leading the way. Among the Bordeaux reds, the 2016 Monte Bello is epic, while the 2017 is extremely promising and the 2018 young, but all finesse. The wine I want to call readers' attention to most, though, is Ridge's Cabernet Sauvignon Estate, the little brother of Monte Bello, which is also one of the single greatest values in California Cabernet Sauvignon.