Sitting above the fog line, the Santa Cruz mountains write the opening stanzas to the symphony of Ridge Vineyards’ famed Monte Bello. The 1971 Monte Bello vintage had featured in the 1976 Judgement of Paris (coming in fifth) and, upon the 30th anniversary rematch of the Judgement of Paris, the same vintage came in first on blind tastings on both sides of the Atlantic, ahead of all other vintages involved in the original 1976 tasting.
Recently, in a quiet part of Damansara Heights, Bidou—the French restaurant helmed by Darren Teoh of two-Michelin-starred Dewakan—saw the arrival of Ridge Vineyards’ COO and chief winemaker John Olney as well as international sales director Katie Blakely, who were there to present Ridge Vineyards to guests gathered by Fortier Wines & Spirit, the sole distributor for the winery in Malaysia.
In his opening remarks, Fortier’s strategic advisor, Lionel Lau, expressed his delight at finally having the pleasure of representing Ridge Vineyards in the local market, following a multi-year discussion with Blakely. “I was introduced to this wine in the 1990s as I visited America very often and was totally blown away,” Lau said. “So, we are super chuffed that John Olney himself, the chief winemaker, is here today to officially launch Ridge Vineyards in Malaysia.”
Taking the stage, Olney shared that he joined Ridge in 1996, after catching the wine bug in Europe while living in the south of France with an uncle, who was a food and wine writer. “What I picked up was that most of the really great wines in the world usually come from one specific site—something unique that makes the wine taste a little bit more complex.”
Back in the United States, Olney was fired up with the idea of forging a career in winemaking, having experienced working at some wineries in France. However, he was having a hard time getting looked at back in California, as many prospective employers had wanted hires with professional qualifications in oenology. At Ridge, Olney met Paul Draper, who was its chief winemaker—and also a self-taught one—from 1969 till 2015. “The first thing Paul said was, ‘No one who’s ever made wine at Ridge has ever had a college degree’. So I said, ‘Well, that sounds like the place for me’.”
Back then, Olney remembered that there were two schools of thought in Californian winemaking. “One was a bit technical, blending vineyards from all over California and following recipes, with the winemaker who manoeuvred the wine in a certain style,” Olney said. “And, then, there was what Ridge followed, which was focusing on one place, the right place for the grape varietal, where the microclimate and soil perfectly matched, so we don’t fiddle around with the wine too much and let it express itself.”
When Ridge began in 1959, founded by four Stanford Research Institute engineers, its vineyards were planted high on the Monte Bello ridge in the Santa Cruz mountains, around 800m above sea level. This area, a mere 24km from the Pacific Ocean, had seen its first grape vines in the late 19th century, thanks to Osea Perrone, an Italian immigrant who built terraces, planted the vines, and dug out the limestone cellar (which Ridge uses to this day).
Here, low-yielding vineyards (two tons per acre) have taken root on limestone and Franciscan rock, producing the coolest micro-climate cabernet sauvignon in all of California. “It acts like an air conditioner, keeping it light with balanced acidity, and slightly lower sugars and alcohol,” Olney said.
In the winemaking, each parcel is made separately, with selections and tasting determining the highest quality for its flagship Monte Bello. “When the founders decided to make some wine in 1969, they made a couple of barrels of Monte Bello and were so impressed with the quality—having never made wine before—that they felt the quality was coming from the vineyard,” Olney explained.
In time, Ridge Vineyards continued to feature as among the best that California had to offer, winning the 2021 and 2022 Golden Vines Best Fine Wine Producer in the Americas Award, ahead of other top Napa Valley wineries, as well as the rest of North and South America. The Monte Bello continued to champion a unique confluence of naturally expressive Bordeaux-style winemaking from single vineyards, with ageing in American oak versus French barrels. Multiple references from wine critics have positioned the Monte Bello as America’s First Growth and even that of a twin to the Super Tuscan Sassicaia in terms of its outstanding quality.
“I’ve had the good fortune to taste Monte Bello all the way back to 1971, and the wines were pristine,” Olney said. At this Malaysian debut dinner, guests were offered the 2020 Monte Bello, paired with Bidou’s lamb saddle chartreuse with parsley. The 2020 served up plenty of fruit, with toastiness from the 100 per cent new oak, and very firm tannins giving this young wine plenty of runway for ageing.
There was time yet for Olney to also share stories of Ridge Vineyards’ continued growth, one which brought them renown with their Three Valleys Zinfandel—a quirk of fate as it turned out. “The original founders of Ridge couldn’t buy any cabernet, but what they found were old zinfandel vines all over the state and discovered it’s a grape that grows really well in warmer climates, which is the majority of the state,” Olney said. With Ridge’s Three Valleys Zinfandel, more than 20 parcels of land on a single vineyard produce the grapes and then the wine—with the best lots assembled as the wine. With its Lytton Springs, the script is flipped, thanks to a combination of grape varieties on the same plot, resulting in the entire harvest being co-fermented to produce a better result: about 70 per cent being zinfandel, Petite Syrah for structure, carignane for maintaining acidity, and a small percentage of Alicante Bouschet for extra fruit.
