Monte Bello

Ridge Vineyards is a pioneering California estate, founded in the 1960s with the limestone-rich slopes of Monte Bello Ridge in Santa Cruz Mountains (AVA). Its legacy was cemented when the 1971 Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon was ranked 3rd in the historic 1976 Judgement of Paris, beating top Chateaux from Bordeaux. Now renowned for its elegant, ageworthy Cabernet Sauvignon and also its old vine Zinfandals and traditional fields blends from historic sites across Sonoma County. These are great terroir-driven wines, from a winemaking philosophy of minimal intervention, native yeasts and transparents winemaking to express the site, vintage and varietal character. Ridge crafts some of the most ageworthy and authentic wines in the United States. Only 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and at altitudes between 400–820m, Ridge Monte Bello is New World cool-climate viticulture. “As cool as Bordeaux but without the rain” is how Ridge's original winemaker Paul Draper describes it, modelling the wine after Château Latour.