Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello Vertical Tasting: Living Up to Past Glories

When I first visited Ridge Vineyards, driving up the hairpin turns of the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco in 1989, their Monte Bello was a rare example of a single-vineyard red Bordeaux blend in California. Now it’s clear Monte Bello was a pioneer of what became a major trend started at the very end of the 20^th century.

The name wasn’t the creation of a marketing department. Instead, its history goes back to 1885, when Osea Perrone, a doctor in San Francisco, started planting vineyards there. 1892 was the first vintage, but the original vineyards died during the Prohibition era (1920-1933). In the late 1940s, William Short planted several blocks of cabernet sauvignon on the mountain, and it was from these vines that Ridge made the first modern Monte Bello in 1962.

By the late 20^th century, Monte Bello had become a cult wine, but its self-confidently “European” style was controversial. Not everybody loved the elegance and subtlety that chief winemaker Paul Draper worked so hard to achieve when he was there from 1969 to 2015. As a result, for a long time Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello was mainly bought by fans with moderate incomes, rather than wealthy collectors. For this reason vertical tastings of the wine are rare.

I therefore jumped at the chance to attend a Monte Bello vertical tasting organized by Thomas Kammeier, one of Berlin’s leading chefs. It took place at his Berlin restaurant The Cord and was attended by a diverse group ranging from TV chef Ralf Zacherl to the former foreign minister of Germany, Joschka Fischer.

The tasting included very vintage from 2015 back to 2001, plus 1999 and 1993. There are no notes for the 2004 vintage because it was a bad bottle (oxidized), or the 1999 vintage, which was corked (TCA).

“I was introduced to Ridge Monte Bello by Roy Metzdorf, who ran the Weinstein wine bar in Berlin until his death in 2017,” Kammeier explained. “I started regularly buying the wine with the 2001 vintage, then a couple of guests added wines from the 1990s.”

Another guest at the vertical added, “At Weinstein, Roy always brought out the Monte Bello for his friends around 4 a.m.” That’s very Berlin, but the Monte Bello vertical started rather conventionally at 7 p.m.

Although everyone at the table was familiar with Monte Bello, and many had met Paul Draper in California and/or Berlin, nobody had tasted the recent vintages, and there was much discussion about whether they would live up to famed years like the 1991, 1999 and 2001.

The first wines we tasted – the 2015, 2014 and 2013 ­– were breathtaking, which is reflected in their stratospheric ratings. But there were many astonishing wines, and not one of the bottles was less than impressive. Ridge Monte Bello has never been better.

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

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