Ridge Vineyards: The History of Monte Bello
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Monte Bello is a unique wine from the Santa Cruz Mountains, celebrating 50 years of winemaking since its original establishment in 1886. The winery, renowned for its Bordeaux varietals, has a rich history marked by closures and replanting efforts, with its wines gaining international acclaim, including recognition in the famed Paris tasting of 1976. Under the guidance of winemaker Paul Draper, the vineyard continues to produce exceptional wines, looking forward to future vintages.
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Ridge Vineyards: The History of Monte Bello
- 1. orig. adj.
- 2. Monte Bello is first and foremost a wine of place. That place — high atop the Santa Cruz Mountains underlain by decomposing limestone and Franciscan rock — produces a wine unlike any other.
- 3. With the 2012 vintage of Monte Bello, Ridge celebrates 50 years of fine winemaking. The first vines were planted and construction begun on our stone and redwood winery in 1886. The first vintage of Monte Bello was in 1892, one hundred and twenty years ago. However, the winery closed during Prohibition, reopened with repeal, but closed and the vineyards abandoned definitively in the early 1940s. In 1959 the Ridge partners purchased eight acres of cabernet replanted in the late 1940s and forty acres of abandoned vineyard. They rebonded as Ridge Vineyards and made the superb vintage of 1962. Early on, the Ridge partners would invite friends and family to help with harvest (left). adj.
- 4. Back in the 1880s the climate high on Monte Bello Ridge was too cool, as it is today, to consistently ripen zinfandel, the dominant California varietal of that era. The grapes chosen instead were mainly the Bordeaux varietals. The vines and their deep roots have been transforming the fractured limestone sub-soils of the ridge for much of the last one hundred years. The partners replanted more of the abandoned blocks in the 1960s, but not until the mid-seventies were those vines mature enough to be included in the Monte Bello. Over the years, we have been able to purchase or lease a number of the remaining nineteenth-century parcels and continue replanting.
- 5. The Santa Cruz Mountains appellation separates the North Coast from the Central Coast, but is not a part of either and is cut in two by the San Andreas fault. The climate of the eastern side, on the North American plate, where the Monte Bello vineyards are located, is influenced primarily by San Francisco Bay and secondarily by the Pacific Ocean, fifteen miles to the west. The western side, on the Pacific plate, is influenced entirely by the Pacific Ocean. Though both are cool, the eastern side is above the bay’s inversion layer and warm enough to ripen the Bordeaux varietals. The western segment, however, is deeply affected by the ocean’s summer fogs; it has proved most suited to pinot noir and chardonnay. Monte Bello’s higher vineyards (2000’– 2700’) are within sight of the Pacific, and cooled by the winds and occasional fog off the ocean. The original crusher de-stemmer powered by a horse and mule. Circa 1895 (left). Monte Bello vines above the clouds (right).
- 6. When I was offered the job of winemaker in 1969, the partners opened their 1962 and 1964 Monte Bello for me to taste. They had explained that they had never made wine before and had let the natural yeast ferment the grapes. They had not fined or filtered and only made minimal additions of sulfur dioxide. In those years when all wines were inexpensive I had the chance to taste great years of Bordeaux and the exceptional cabernets made in the late 1930s by Inglenook and in the Santa Cruz Mountains by La Cuesta. The Ridge 1962 and 1964 Monte Bellos were more complex than any California cabernets of the 1960s and were in a class with the best Bordeaux and those historic cabernets of the 1930s. I realized that with the limestone soils and cool climate of Monte Bello Ridge, they had happened on an ideal site for making fine wine and in their minimalist winemaking simply stayed out of the way. I knew that if I joined them I would have the chance of making some exceptional wines because of this distinctive site. We feel that the Monte Bello over the last fifty years has proven itself one of the finest and longest-lived of California wines. We look forward to another fifty years of continuing to learn from our vineyards in attempting to make even finer wines given the distinct conditions of each vintage. Paul Draper, February 2015 Maureen and Paul Draper on their wedding day, 1975 (top left). The French judges and Steven Spurrier, the English organizer, at the Paris Tasting 1976 (right). The 1971 Monte Bello that placed fifth out of ten in The Paris Tasting of 1976, placed first in the official repeat 30 years later, eighteen points above the second place wine. At 12.2% alcohol, it had aged more perfectly than, for example, the 1970 Mouton Rothschild or the 1970 Haut Brion (far right).
- 7. Judgment of Paris photography by Bella Spurrier
- 8. MONTE BEL C O L L E C T 408.867.3233 • www.ridgewine.com