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1971 Ridge Carignan, Coast Range, bottled 4/73  (alc. 13.6%) Find Ridge Carignan

“This wine is not one that we normally make at Ridge yet it is so widely used in California to blend with other red varietals, that it is of decided interest to taste as a 100% varietal. The wine is quite big and surprisingly rich with a good fruit and oak in the nose, and the softness of a full malo-lactic fermentation. It should be drinkable next year and yet will not be in its prime for five years of more. PD (5/73)“

Rich garnet color – dazzling earthy aromas of sweet red stone fruits –little attack up-front – the wine simply appears on the mid-palate –smooth and velvety as can be – amazing texture and a joy to drink.

Other tasters:

• Earthy, dried mushrooms, meaty, dried out fruit but pleasantly vivid palate…opened up very nicely
• Smoky, tobacco nose. Very little fruit initially – came out soon in the glass and held up well all night
• Burned caramel, vanilla, flan. Pretty poopy
• Initially came across as tired/fading. More alive in the mouth than expected…served blind I’d guess an older Bordeaux…soft finish with the sweetness that comes from age…actually drinking quite well
• Dusty, dry cherry…the acid pokes through and carries this like a mid-weight burgundy…cohesive and fresh. Carrying its age very gracefully

1963 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled January 1968 (alc. 10.7%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“We wrote in RIDGE Wine List Number 2 (November 1966), while this wine was still in barrel: "Light in some ways because of the cool year, but still heavy in tannin, hence long in coming to maturity." Given over four years in wood and over five in bottle, we now think this wine is near a peak. DRB (8/72)”

Airy, with coastal aromas of wild herbs and secondary notes of graphite and minerality. Attractive and balanced dark stone fruit flavors with fine tannins that clip the finish to start, but the wine fleshes out beautifully and develops both breadth and length.

Other tasters:

• Gorgeous, captivating perfume, pleasantly herbaceous with tobacco…very well balanced, bright Bing cherry, great length
• Hard as nails…No, wait! It’s Monte Bello! Acidity to spare. Fruit is lean…menthol and mint. Lasted strong for half the night
• Vibrant and juicy. Missing a little mid-palate
• Muddled, dried flowers, cassis. The aromas are still fairly deep and undeniably charming. Lively in the mouth – plenty of acidity. Great balance in a feminine/elegant/racy style – California meets Margaux. Did not fare well with extended aeration
• Aromas of juniper berry, coastal sage, wild tobacco, black currants.  Clean and focused on the palate with a fair amount of tannic structure that follows through. Dried herbs and savory red & black fruit. The texture is remarkable, sexy, feminine and flavors seemingly appear on the palate like a summer breeze. After an hour this is singing. Tannin has evolved from a main player to a stage upon which the mulberry, tree bark, cherry fruit, cigar tobacco and mineral elements dance. A beautiful, majestic, complete wine and my WOTN

1965 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled October 1969 (alc. 11.6%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“In June, 1969, we said of the earlier bottling (June 1968) of this vintage: "Full of natural pigments and tannins because of our methods of vinification, the wine will develop elegance with bottle-aging as some of these substances precipitate on to the inner surface of the bottle." This single barrel seemed less ready to bottle in 1968; hence the delay of over a year. DRB (8/72)”

A touch of funk on the nose, followed by saline/herbal/iodine aromas –pretty fruit flavors, but a short finish with drying tannins. After 30 minutes, the wine had fallen apart showing only tannins and sharp acids.

Other tasters:

• First “ah-ha” wine right out of the first sip. Clearly Monte Bello. Started lush, but it’s fading quickly…green later. Falling apart
• Pretty hot…then dry. Pretty much had it
• Overripe aromas. Monolithic. VA. Probably was a tannic young wine that has aged into a tannic old wine. Utterly without charm
• Slightly medicinal nose…bit hollow on the mid-palate, slightly green and vegetal yet smoky and meaty
• Ripe nose…predominantly fruit up front, but there is some metallic, animal/gamey character I can’t seem to get past…simple and monolithic…the tannins continue to be drying as the evening wears on and eventually this falls apart

1966 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled March 1972 (alc. 13.8%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“This big, long-lived wine has less than perfect balance. Therefore most of the harvest was used as the basis for our formerly released nonvintage Cabernets 66/69 and 66/71. Clearly, this single-barrel amount of the 66 vintage is strictly for collectors. DRB (10/72)”

Perfectly ripe fruit aromas with tobacco/sage nuances – rich and full in the mouth with upfront ripe purple and black fruits that fill the mouth. Long finish. Tasted blind, I might guess the 87 or 90.

Other tasters:

• Black currants, deep and plumy. Ripe but balanced. A small bit of VA showing but it actually adds complexity. Comes across as full and young in the mouth – I’d be at least a decade off if I had to guess the vintage. 40 years old and it’s still a bit disjointed …doesn’t match particularly well with the food
• Very oaky nose, pungent with volatile acidity…picked over-ripe?…palate is better than nose
• Invades the senses almost audaciously
• Mint, earth, spice…some VA, some big acid. Later in the night it got disorganized
• This is extremely dark, purple, with slight touch of heat on the nose although it is not obtrusive, however the VA is, unfortunately. Pie crust, black plums, pencil shavings, cedar, and rustic dried herbs. This is much more like a barrel sample than a 30-year-old wine. Good freshness, somewhat grapey, and sauvage, but the VA is a deal-breaker, it doesn’t “blow off” as the night progresses (why do people think it just goes away?).

1967 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled 10/70. (alc. 12.3%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“This is the primary batch of our 1967 Cabernet Sauvignon. It is slightly lighter than the bottling (11/69) released earlier. However, it has a little more wood from the added time in cask and is big and dark compared to the average Cabernet wine. Compared to earlier RIDGE Cabernets, it is intermediate in body between the 1962 and 1964 vintages, i.e. more like the 1965. DRB (3/71)”

Shy nose of minerals, tea, sea air – restrained and elegant in the mouth– very lady-like, but doesn’t last long in the glass.

Other tasters:

• Pungent aromas of dried herbs, cherries and slightly stewed tomatoes. A bit of bretty/poop rears its head. Initially thin on entry. This wine is charming, feminine for about 45 minutes, then begins to discombobulate…Elvis has left the building
• More balanced than the 66, but not much going on…minimal fruit
• Totally non-offensive, but not memorable. Subtle and balanced though. Very lady-like
• Earth, tobacco, very clean and focused nose…plenty of tannins left…not too complex but pleasant
• Stuffy and medicinal at first then floral with cough syrup notes. Quite dry and tannic – the fruit is long gone. Not bad but one dimensional

1968 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, main harvest, bottled 4/71 (alc. 12.7%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“Though picked at only slightly higher sugar content than the 1967 crop, the 68 grapes from our fully mature Cabernet vineyard produced a wine even richer and fuller. We recommend to collectors that they consider not opening it, except for testing and evaluation, until 1978 at the earliest. DRB (8/71)”

More of the mineral/saline driven aromatic profile – very much like the 67 aromatically. Beautiful balance in the mouth with lovely texture –fine tannins on the back end with time – velvety texture, lovely balance.

Other tasters:

• The most obvious Santa Cruz Mountain nose thus far – black olives, sage and other herbs. Not quite Bordeaux but a million miles from the Napa Valley. Big, young, structured and tannic in the mouth but everything is in balance. It doesn’t taste old at all – Great extract, great texture –this is the real thing
• Green olives, plenty of spices…impeccable balance, seamless mouth feel with plenty of oak and fruit, very long finish
• Green olive. VERY nice. Finish broadens out well. Possibly the wine best caught between youth and age. A mile long. Favorite of the night? Yes!
• Nice, gentle, subtle. Balanced
• Consider the smell of orange blossoms next to a corral. The aroma of this ’68 is utterly striking, very complex, and captivating. Very balanced on the palate, clean meaty, slight VA and classy texture. This is regal juice.

1970 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled December 1972 (alc. 131/2%) [Draper’s first Monte Bello] Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“The grapes produced on Monte Bello Ridge in 1970 were in the tradition of the big years (e.g. '64, '68) of the last decade. By completing a malolactic fermentation immediately following the harvest and by effecting a racking schedule along Bordeaux lines, we produced a wine that has Monte Bellos's richness and depth yet is softer in style. It could be ready to try in two years, though it will continue to develop and show its vigor some twenty years hence. PD (1/73)”

Red fruit aromas with menthol/mint/eucalyptus notes – almost indescribably beautiful in the mouth with flavors, texture and balance that approach perfection.

Other tasters:

• This wine is decidedly different from the previous vintages. The caveman has traded his crusty fur for a three-piece suit. He’s still barefoot though, and the mineral/earth character still shines through. Pungent cedar, tobacco, castelvetrano olive tapenade character. Dusted cherry, iron blood, and smoked meat. No danger in this one going over the hill soon
• Chewy (a good thing) That chew that you want to pursue!
• More tart than some of the others. Might need age, which seems stupid to even say. Coming around well after 40 minutes. Wow! Big wine
• Dried cherries, cassis, very creamy mouth feel, full bodied, showing almost no age, this puppy has so much life left, tremendous!
• High toned aromatics…obviously made from ripe grapes. Big/dumb/young with lots of everything. More about size and ripeness than elegance and finesse, but it is absolutely terrific with the lamb

1972 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, Monte Bello, bottled 9/74 (alc. 12.8%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“In 1972 the grapes reached good balance and were harvested on the Ridge the day before the premature winter rains. The picking just at maturity, rather than our usual course of allowing the grapes to slightly over-ripen, provided a Bordeaux-like elegance. This lovely, full wine, softened by the malolactic fermentation, shows strong varietal character. Although ready for tasting this spring, it should be laid down for five to ten years. PD (10/74)”

Coconut and medicinal aromas with little interest or charm. It went downhill from there.

Other tasters:

• Light, perfumey, lots of VA. Rough hewn without much flavor or charm. Too much tannin, too little fruit
• Almost too oaky, bit disjointed on the nose, lacks fruit, green gritty tannins yet has a strange surmaturite sweetness, out of balance
• Coconut frosting. Oak death. Oops! Only bad wine on the table
• Like eating artificially flavored coconut frosting out of a plastic tub
• Initial whack of oak on the nose, which gives way to vanilla scented candles, buttered popcorn and coconut. Flavors echo aromas, and this dark colored juice makes consistent right turns from wood, to Mounds bars, to medicinal/green herbs After an hour Peter Paul decides to let some of the fruit out of its cage, and it is decidedly black currant in profile

Then: There is a half bottle of this left on day 2 – this has transformed from an oak-bomb to a butterfly of a wine. Crisp, red and black fruit, mineral, with alluring texture, this is round and generous. Gorgeous and supple, yet maintaining freshness. As dramatic a transformation as I can remember. Glorious!

1974 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, Monte Bello, bottled Oct 76 (alc. 12.9%) Find Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet

“In the superb harvest of 1974, both the seven and the thirty year old vines matured fully and gave us a wine with the richness and complexity of a great vintage. The secondary fermentation was complete by that December and the wine was racked to small oak cooperage. This intense Cabernet will be showing considerable depth by next fall, but should have five to ten years of bottle age to develop fully. PD (10/76)”

Very shy at first, then closes down completely. Barely approachable. This bottle was a true Garbo. Try again in ten years or more.

Other tasters:

• Reticent aromas, giving up very little. On the palate there is something, then the black hole quickly closes to reveal gobs of nothing. As Randy Jackson would say: “It’s not your night ‘dog’.”
• Deep black fruit nose with licorice, black pepper and currants, very tannic, shut down, needs to age much longer
• Young. Hard. I think this wine needs another 10 years
• Burned poop. Tannic
• Sweet oak, mahogany, black olives and some prune Danish aromas from the ripeness of the grapes. Comes across as quite young in the mouth – tannic and impenetrable. Lots of depth and the structure of a great claret, a Saint-Julien perhaps

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