2016 Ridge Vineyards "Estate" Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon

The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Estate comes from the Santa Cruz Mountain estate, and it follows its big brother Monte Bello's style with a terrific sense of elegance paired with richness. Lots of crème de cassis, crushed violets, vanilla, tobacco leaf, and cedar notes flow to a medium to full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, layered Cabernet Sauvignon that has terrific purity, building tannins, and a great finish. 94+

Recently I was lucky enough to taste five decades of Ridge Monte Bello with winemaker, Eric Baugher. We tasted 1975, 1985, 1995 (all from large format), 2005, 2015, 2016 and 2018 from barrel. It was incredible. However, one of my biggest takeaways from the tasting was how much of an absolute steal the "Estate" Cabernet is - a true Baby Monte Bello. It was very interesting to hear Eric speak to how the selection of what makes "Monte Bello" vs "Estate" is done purely on structural characters that start to show during the fermentation stage. It's not older blocks vs younger ones, or better blocks vs under-performing ones, it's a true assessment of age-ability vs accessibility. Everything is farmed the same (organically and largely dry-farmed), cropped the same, made the same. The Estate Cab is simply an expression of that same site that shows its true colors earlier in life than the more tannic, structured, tightly wound Monte Bello bottling. In fact tasting them side-by-side is very fun...the similarities in flavor are striking. Eric believes the 2016 Monte Bello has the potential to be the longest lived release of that wine in history...a "50-100 year wine." So unless you have a deep cellar and incredible patience, the Estate Cab might be a good option! I was so excited about how good the 2016 Estate Cab was we managed to secure a bit more wine than usual this year and I hope many of you will take advantage and snap up some bottles or cases. It won't disappoint.