In Bond Fine Wine. 2016 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello, Santa Cruz Mountains, California, USA. Red usa-california in 6x75cl. Top critic score: 100/100 (VIN). Drinking window: 2027–2056. Sold in bond by Albany Vintners, independent fine wine merchants.
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 'Judgement of Paris'. Renowned for its elegant Cabernet Sauvignon and also its old vine Zinfandels and traditional fields blends from historic sites across Sonoma County, Ridge crafts some of the most ageworthy and authentic wines in the United States. These are great terroir-driven wines, from a winemaking philosophy of minimal intervention, native yeasts and transparent winemaking to express the site, vintage and varietal character. Ridge remains, without question, one of America’s greatest wine producers.
Billy Norris (BN) — 100/100 · Vinous, 2024-09-01 · Drink 2027-2056
The 2016 Monte Bello is a masterful expression of this lauded site in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s powerful, broad and infinitely layered, but it also possesses an incredibly finessed tannin structure that speaks clearly and forcefully but yields dutifully. Saturated blueberry, gravel, eucalyptus, charcoal, cedar and India ink build gradually and steadily through the long and sizzling finish. J…