Here is How Ridge Vineyards Modified California Wine Perpetually

Up behind the city of Cupertino, California, there’s an extended, steep, winding street. In case you observe it, you’ll finally come to a swish redwood constructing. From there, you’ll be able to see, far down beneath, distant and silent, the tech fervor of Silicon Valley. That is Ridge Vineyards. 

Not way back, I went there to talk with Ridge’s chairman emeritus, Paul Draper, an icon of California winemaking whose profession kind of encompasses your complete fashionable period of California wine, as does Ridge itself. The vineyard was based in 1959 by a trio of Stanford engineers; Draper joined them in 1969.

Issues had been totally different then. “There wasn’t remotely as a lot curiosity in wine within the U.S. at the moment,” Draper recollects. “And California wine from the Nineteen Forties, ’50s, after which ’60s, none of them had been as complicated or would age in addition to one of the best Bordeaux. I believed, ‘Jesus, are we at that a lot of a drawback that we simply can’t do this?’ However after I got here up right here, I sat down and was given a style of the ’62 and ’64 that Dave [Bennion, Ridge’s original winemaker] had made together with his companions, they usually had been two of one of the best California wines I had ever had in my life. Wow. Proper there. And so I mentioned to myself, ‘Properly, for Christ’s sake, you are able to do it in California.’”

In 1960, there have been solely 271 wineries in all of California. At this time, there are over 4,800, they usually’re in nearly each a part of the state. Draper’s realization in regards to the potential of California wine in that second has been proved again and again. Below his management, Ridge has additionally been a forerunner for developments in California wine which have over time develop into mainstays.

First, a realization of the worth of historic, old-vine vineyards and the rise of single-vineyard wines. They’ve shepherded natural viticulture (Ridge, which has a second vineyard north of Healdsburg, is the only largest natural grape grower in Sonoma County) and ingredient labeling (nonetheless on the forefront there). And at last, an early transfer — now echoed by a lot of California’s greatest producers — away from a reliance on expertise and chemical adjuncts within the vineyard, towards what Draper calls “preindustrial winemaking.”

He says, “It means utilizing native yeasts, not filtering, not doing something intrusive. Not utilizing any of the present 60 or no matter components which are allowed, and none of all of the heavy-duty processing that you need to use — what folks name their ‘instrument belt’ to make higher wine. What I believed as a substitute was, ‘I’m going to show again time, and we’re going to make wine the way in which they had been making it within the late nineteenth century.’ That’s preindustrial winemaking.

You may style every thing Draper is speaking about in all of his wines, however significantly, for me, within the vineyard’s Geyserville purple ($56), an in-the-vineyard mix of Zinfandel, Carignane, Petite Sirah, and Alicante Bouschet. The center of its character comes from the “outdated patch” of the winery, which was planted over 130 years in the past in Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley. It’s a wine that’s all the time aromatic with aromas of currants and peppery spices, bursting with brambly dark-berry taste, unabashed in its richness but in some way elegant as properly; and a portrait of California wine historical past in a bottle.

2023 Ridge Grenache Blanc ($35)

Ridge winemaker John Olney sources Grenache Blanc (and slightly Picpoul and Roussanne) from a number of Paso Robles vineyards for this melon-pear flavored white; full-bodied and mouth-coating, however with lime-citrus acid with a salty zip on the tip.

2022 Ridge Paso Robles Zinfandel ($46)

Nineteen Twenties period vines on the Benito Dusi Ranch in Paso Robles present the fruit for this impossible-not-to-love Zinfandel. It’s brilliant and juicy, with basic Zinberry flavors (principally, if there was a berry that in some way crossed strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry, and blackberry, that’d be a Zinberry).

2022 Ridge Lytton Property Petite Sirah ($47)

Sourced from Ridge’s Lytton Property property, this powerhouse purple deserves both a couple of years in a cellar or else a big and really juicy steak. The flavors are all purple and purple fruit, plums and mulberries, embraced by emphatic tannins and a tangy, mineral end.

2022 Ridge Lytton Springs ($56)

That is the fiftieth anniversary classic of Lytton Springs, and it’s as distinctive and sophisticated as ever. Blackberry-rich and laced with clove and mocha hints, it’s structured however plush all of sudden. Like most of Ridge’s purple wines, this Zinfandel-driven mix goes into American oak barrels, which can provide a particular vanilla be aware; as a result of solely 17% of these barrels had been new on this classic, that’s extra like a faint, alluring whiff, which lifts above the wine’s juicy, darkish, lasting fruit.

2022 Ridge Geyserville ($56)

The center of this wine comes from the “outdated patch” of Ridge’s Whitten Ranch winery, a gnarled, seven-acre block of vines (Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, and others) planted in 1891—they’re a few of California’s oldest. The 2022 classic is basic Geyserville, with blackberry-plum-currant fruit, heat spice notes, and smooth tannins. Drink it now, cellar it for a couple of years, or conceal it away and open it in a few a long time.

2021 Ridge Monte Bello ($295)

Ridge’s Monte Bello is one in every of California’s nice Cabernet-based wines, on this classic a mix of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, and 5% Petit Verdot. The aromas spring from the glass—purple cherries and cassis, a touch of vanilla oak, violets—and are echoed within the taste, which is carried alongside on fine-grained, substantial tannins and lifting acidity.

Tasted in October 2024, it’s nonetheless extremely younger, and has a long time forward of it. Wine lovers used to top-level Napa Valley Cabernets gained’t discover the oomph of extraction and richness they’re used to right here—Ridge’s high-altitude Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards don’t work that manner—however this can be a thrillingly complicated purple, deceptively highly effective and lasting, and to not be missed.