From Monte Bello to Geyserville and Lytton Springs, Ridge Vineyards works with a few of the most iconic winery websites within the historical past of American wine. However whereas many sommeliers and oenophiles are enamored by the vineyard’s expressive Bordeaux-style blends and Zinfandels, some won’t concentrate on simply how far again this vineyard’s historical past goes.
From the conception of the Monte Bello winery within the 1800s to the Judgement of Paris, there’s rather a lot that went into the model that Ridge is at present. Nonetheless, all through its wealthy historical past, the vineyard has been dedicated to sustainability, low-intervention winemaking, and crafting wines that specific the complete potential of a single winery web site — which is why it’s had a faithful following for its over 60 years of manufacturing.
Whether or not you’re a longtime fan or a blossoming Zinfandel drinker, listed below are eight issues you need to learn about Ridge Vineyards.
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Ridge’s deep historical past begins with one particular winery.
The vineyard can hint its historical past again to 1885, when Dr. Osea Perrone bought 180 acres on Monte Bello Ridge to determine the Monte Bello Winery. Perrone additionally constructed a stone vineyard on this web site within the Santa Cruz Mountains and produced its first wine in 1892. Years later, in 1949, Dr. William Quick, who owned an adjoining winery, replanted a number of blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon and added the primary block of Chardonnay, setting the winery up for its future success.
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The vineyard was based by three analysis scientists.
In 1959, three engineers from the Stanford College Analysis Institute and their households partnered to purchase Dr. Quick’s property on the Monte Bello Ridge. Although the workforce had no intention of beginning a vineyard, certainly one of researchers, David Bennion, began casually experimenting with making some Cabernet Sauvignon. This impressed the companions to re-bond the vineyard and title it Ridge Vineyards in 1962. The inaugural wine was a Cabernet-dominant Bordeaux mix named Monte Bello.
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Now, Ridge works with a few of California’s most storied winery websites.
Ridge’s Cabernet blends from Monte Bello made a splash — significantly when the 1971 Monte Bello bottling got here in fifth place within the 1976 Judgement of Paris — however the vineyard rapidly added extra winery websites to its repertoire as effectively. In 1966, Ridge made its first Geyserville bottling, a Zinfandel-dominant discipline mix from a set of outdated vines in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley. These legendary, over-130-year-old vines are the oldest that Ridge at the moment works with, and the Geyserville bottlings proceed to be extremely esteemed wines.
One other web site that’s obtained important consideration is the Lytton Springs winery, which Ridge began working with in 1972. It’s situated in California’s Dry Creek Valley, which is broadly thought of one of many high areas for high-quality Zinfandel, and this explicit winery is the head of California Zin. Ridge only recently celebrated 50 years of constructing wine from this plot, opening 50-year-old bottles of Lytton Springs Zinfandel to show simply how effectively these wines can age.
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Ridge had the identical winemaker for 47 years.
Paul Draper grew up on a farm outdoors Chicago, however after dwelling in Italy and France he developed an curiosity in wine. Within the mid-’60s, Draper got down to begin his personal small vineyard within the Coast Vary of Chile with a winery of old-vine Cabernet Sauvignon. After returning to the States, he joined Ridge Vineyards because the winemaker in 1969. Draper helped create Ridge’s famend status for superbly crafted wines and helped preserve it for many years. He retired in 2016 at 80 years outdated, after a adorned, 47-year profession as Ridge’s winemaker.
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The vineyard follows “pre-industrial” winemaking practices.
Although most customers are in all probability conversant in the idea of pure wine, Ridge all the time adopted its personal explicit, low-intervention winemaking philosophy spearheaded by Draper. Being a vineyard-focused vineyard, Ridge’s method begins with the land. Since its early days, Ridge has been devoted to working with sustainably farmed vineyards, and it’s at the moment one of many largest growers of organically licensed grapes in Sonoma County and the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of 2022, the vineyard’s property vineyards are 100% organic- licensed. With regards to winemaking, Ridge minimizes using components in an effort to realize the highest-quality wine. The workforce appears to be like to the strategies used within the best Nineteenth- century California wineries and Bordeaux estates. Alongside these pointers, Ridge works with pure yeasts from the winery, bottles with minimal sulfur, and doesn’t use any business enzymes or vitamins.
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Ridge is a frontrunner in clear ingredient labeling.
In keeping with its winemaking philosophy, Ridge lists the substances used to make the wine on the label. A pioneer in full ingredient transparency for wine, winemaker Paul Draper pushed so as to add this element to the bottle early on — to assist showcase Ridge’s pre-industrial practices — and began including the ingredient label in 2011.
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Ridge launched America’s first wine membership.
In 1977, Ridge launched the Advance Tasting Program (ATP), which is broadly thought of to be America’s first wine membership. Since Ridge crafts so many small-batch bottlings of various grape varieties, blends, and single-vineyard websites, this created a means for followers of the vineyard to obtain the limited-production bottles. As we speak, the wine membership mannequin is a wildly in style means for wineries within the U.S. to achieve prospects.
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The vineyard discovered its fan base in high quality eating.
Ridge has all the time valued growing relationships with sommeliers and inserting its wines at high eating places. In actual fact, in 1976 — the identical 12 months that the Judgement of Paris put Ridge on the map — legendary chef Alice Waters hosted a dinner at Chez Panisse known as the Northern California Regional Dinner, that includes native meals and native wines. This was a watershed second in American eating, as the main focus had been primarily French and broadly European, however this main occasion put the highlight on “California Delicacies,” creating a wholly new class. The 1974 Ridge Fiddletown Zinfandel was featured on the menu (for less than $1.50 a glass) which even additional propelled Ridge as a model.
