Ridge Vineyards

Ridge Vineyards has two tasting rooms: one up in Sonoma Valley and one down south in the Saratoga Hills, where their grapes for their premier bottle: the Monte Bello are grown. Completely out of character for us, we chose the one in South Bay.

Why did we try Ridge? It was one of the wineries involved in the Judgement at Paris and their cabernets have gotten rave reviews ever since.

And it’s not just hype. We chose the Estate Single-Vineyard tasting with Monte Bello for was $25. There’s also an Estate Single-Vineyard without the Monte Bello for $15 but it seemed silly to go home without tasting the flagship wine. I’m not sure this bottle is worth the price tag ($225), but the Monte Bello is for sure a wonderful Bordeaux blend with flavors of dark chocolate, cheery cola, and green bell pepper. Husband says try opening it in 15 years. lol!

Their regular Cabernet Sauvignon is quite good on it’s own. While it’s made from the grapes that don’t make it into the Monte Bello, the wine still has a full story and a bit more bite from the Petite Verdot.

Although known for their cabs, Ridge also makes a nice Zin/field blend, a Syrah that tasted like blueberries, and (my second favorite from the tasting) a Merlot that was fruit forward with notes of baking spices. Why didn’t we buy a bottle of this? This must be remedied.

Two notes: getting to this winery is a windy drive and not recommended for those who are easily car sick. Also, the place is a bit of a circus without a ring master. After getting mixed up with a tour group and failing to find someone to seat us on the patio, we ended up finding a table up on the hill with a view of Silicon Valley.