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 again and the vineyards abandoned definitively in the early 1940’s. In 1959 the Ridge partners purchased eight acres of cabernet replanted in the late 40’s and forty acres of abandoned vineyard. They rebonded as Ridge Vineyards and made the superb vintage of 1962.

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