Wine Advisor
Ridge, Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
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Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2013 Monte Bello is utterly spellbinding in its beauty. Finely sculpted and chiseled, with super-expressive aromatics and searing tannins, the 2013 is shaping up to be a modern-day classic. The 2013 is remarkably pure and vibrant for such a big wine. It will be years before the 2013 is close to being ready to drink. Even so, it is magnificent today. Where will the 2013 end up? The future seems limitless for now. Quite simply, the 2013 is a must-have wine. In 2013, Monte Bello is very heavy in Cabernet Sauvignon, partly because Merlot suffered in the drought-like conditions. The 2013 has already begun to shut down in bottle. Readers need to be in for the long haul.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2013 Monte Bello is super-ripe, exotic and flashy. Dark blue and purplish stone fruits, sweet spices and licorice meld together as the 2013 opens up in the glass. There is plenty of supporting acidity and tannin, but the 2013 is likely to always remain flamboyant within the framework of Monte Bello. In 2013 the inversion layer moved around quite a bit, which resulted in warmer days and cooler nights than is the norm at Ridge, where diurnal shifts typically occur within a narrower range. The drought conditions and a blast of late season heat yielded tiny berries, a small crop and an unusually dark, concentrated Monte Bello that is going to require considerable patience. This is another Cabernet Sauvignon-heavy year, with less Merlot than is often the case. Ridge fans can look forward to Monte Bello Old Vines and Monte Bello Steep Terraces Cabernets that had not yet been bottled when I stopped by the winery this past June. Tasted from barrel, those two limited production wines are both shaping up to be magnificent.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2013 Monte Bello is more in the line with the 2010 in terms of its darker fruit profile and overall sense of structure. Dark red and black fruit, lavender, sage and violets are some of the many notes that burst from the glass. Firm tannins support a core of opulent, super-ripe fruit. The 2013 finishes with notable explosiveness and pure power. In 2013, the vines were in the second year of a drought cycle and were therefore more stressed than normal. As a result, the winemaking team backed off the pump overs in order to not extract too much. The Merlot in particular was challenged, so it makes up a relatively small part of the blend, while Cabernet Sauvignon is front and center.
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
Showing even better than last year, the 2013 Monte Bello is a tour de force, and a step up over the 2012. Full-bodied, layered, beautifully concentrated and seamless, it knocks it out of the park with its classic bouquet of plums, vanilla bean, cedary spice, scorched earth and cigar. Made from 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc and the rest Merlot, aged in 98% new American oak (there’s 2% new French oak), I wish I had bottles in the cellar. It should be at its best from 2023-2043.
Reviewed by: William Kelley
The 2013 Monte Bello is a very special vintage for this great wine. Amazingly, it has yet to shut down, unfurling in the glass to reveal a bouquet of black raspberries, cassis, rich espresso roast, cigar wrapper, subtle black truffle and burning embers that has already integrated its 100% new oak remarkably completely. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, powerful and multidimensional, with a lavishly textural attack that segues into a stunningly layered, richly structured mid-palate endowed with incredible depth and concentration underpinned by succulent acids. The finish is long, vibrant and beautifully delineated. The 2013 is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot, and it attained 13.6% natural alcohol. Analytically, this ranks as one of the most tannic vintages of Monte Bello ever produced, but the tannins are of such high quality and cloaked in such a wealth of fruit that Ridge forwent their habitual egg white fining this year—beginning a trend that has continued since. This profound Monte Bello will begin to blossom as it reaches age ten and should prove practically immortal.
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
Tasted out of bottle, the 2013 Monte Bello is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc and just 5% of Merlot (Merlot struggled in 2013 due to the drought). Surprisingly, given the higher Cabernet content, it's more voluptuous and layered than the '12, and has awesome concentration and depth on the palate to go with classic creme de cassis, vanilla bean and violets. Reminding winemaker Eric Baugher of the 1985 (sorry, before my wine drinking time), I suspect this beautifully pure, elegant and seamless beauty will drink nicely in 3-4 years, and have upwards of three decades of overall longevity.
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
The 2013 Monte Bello is a very special vintage for this great wine. Amazingly, it has yet to shut down, unfurling in the glass to reveal a bouquet of black raspberries, cassis, rich espresso roast, cigar wrapper, subtle black truffle and burning embers that has already integrated its 100% new oak remarkably completely. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, powerful and multidimensional, with a lavishly textural attack that segues into a stunningly layered, richly structured mid-palate endowed with incredible depth and concentration underpinned by succulent acids. The finish is long, vibrant and beautifully delineated. The 2013 is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot, and it attained 13.6% natural alcohol. Analytically, this ranks as one of the most tannic vintages of Monte Bello ever produced, but the tannins are of such high quality and cloaked in such a wealth of fruit that Ridge forwent their habitual egg white fining this year—beginning a trend that has continued since. This profound Monte Bello will begin to blossom as it reaches age ten and should prove practically immortal.
Reviewed by: Matthew Luczy
The 2013 Monte Bello is as quintessential an example of Monte Bello as one could ask for, handily combining intoxicating aromas, lavish richness, vibrant energy and tenacious structure. Tasted from magnum, it bounds from the glass with a visceral bouquet that moves through floral, herbal and savory phases before morphing into a dizzying melange that serves as a dictionary definition of Monte Bello's profile. The mouthfeel places the wine among Monte Bello's grander, more enveloping examples, yet for all its power and muscle, the exquisite balance, buoyancy and clear through-line of chalky mineral notes provide ample energy to its multidimensional, show-stopping finish. This is unquestionably a classic rendition not only of Monte Bello but of a California Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend overall, and it is best left in the cellar until at least its 20th birthday. The blend is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 5% Merlot, with 13.6% alcohol.
About the Producer
Ridge Vineyards is a California winery specializing in Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Chardonnay wines. Ridge produces wine at two winery locations in northern California. The original winery facilities are located at an elevation of 2,300 feet (700 metres) on Monte Bello Ridge in unincorporated Santa Clara County in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, south of Los Altos, California and west of Cupertino, California. The other Ridge winery facilities are at Lytton Springs in the Dry Creek Valley AVA of Sonoma County. Ridge Vineyard's 1971 Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon gained prominence for its fifth-place finish in the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" wine tasting. History Although Ridge Vineyards was founded in the early 1960s, wine production at the winery's Monte Bello location has a much longer history. Grapevines were first planted on Monte Bello Ridge by Osea Perrone, a doctor and prominent member of the northern California Italian immigrant community, in 1885. The first Monte Bello wine was produced in 1892. Following Prohibition, the vineyard at Monte Bello passed through the hands of several amateur winemakers until it was purchased in 1959 by David Bennion, Charles Rosen, Hewitt Crane, and Howard Zeidler, all engineers at nearby Stanford Research Institute. Ridge Vineyards was bonded and produced its first commercial wine, a Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon, in 1962. According to a 1987 New York Times article, Ridge Vineyards was acquired by a Japanese company. "The new owner is Otsuka U.S., a subsidiary of the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, a producer of nutritional drinks and other pharmaceutical products. Otsuka operates an experimental wine-making center near Fuji, in Japan." The international reputation of the Monte Bello wine produced by Ridge Vineyards was established when it achieved fifth place in the "Judgment of Paris", against nine other French and California wines. Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon was acclaimed in subsequent competitions, including The Judgment of Paris 30th Anniversary, the 30th anniversary retesting of the same red wines evaluated in the 1976 Paris wine competition. In this blind tasting, held both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, judges in both countries ranked Ridge Monte Bello number one among all the wines judged. Ridge Vineyards produced its first Zinfandel in 1964. Beginning in 1966, the winery began sourcing some grapes for its Geyserville Zinfandel and other wines from vineyards in Sonoma County. In 1991, Ridge Vineyards purchased the Lytton Springs vineyard in the Dry Creek Valley AVA. The winery produces wine at both the Monte Bello and Lytton Springs locations, and operates tasting rooms open to the public at both. Wines Ridge also focuses on single-estate wines where the grapes for a particular label are all grown at the same vineyard. The signature wine of Ridge is its Monte Bello, a field blend of Cabernet Sauvignon mixed with varying percentages of other grapes grown in the same location, usually including Merlot, Petit Verdot, and occasionally Cabernet Franc. Ridge's Zinfandels (or mostly-Zinfandel field blends) constitute the bulk of the winery's production. Using grapes from selected sites from all over the state and bottling them each under their own label, Ridge Zinfandels emphasize the particular characteristics of each growing site and may show different aging characteristics than do other Zinfandels. Among the best known of the Ridge Zinfandels or Zinfandel-blends are those from Geyserville, York Creek, and Lytton Springs.
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