Magic in the Mountains

There are few American wines with a legacy even approaching Ridge Monte Bello’s. While what’s inside the bottle is always incredible, what’s perhaps even more impressive is how long this wine has been around, and its distinctly American origins. While today it’s easy to say, “Yes, of course,” to the Ridge founders’ selection of the Santa Cruz Mountains as the terroir for their prestige bottling, it was a radical move at the time, as the epicenter of California’s growing wine industry was—of course—Napa Valley. Thankfully, the Ridge team’s commitment to limestone soils led them to the mountains overlooking what would become known as Silicon Valley, to the vineyard that would become one of the most iconic in the New World. 

In 1959, a group of Stanford engineers ventured out to make wine in nearby Santa Cruz. Their initial groundwork led the way to hiring, 10 years later, the man who helped propel Monte Bello to its iconic status: Paul Draper. Long a benchmark of California red wines (never mind variety), the Ridge team today is doing anything but resting on its laurels. Indeed, the Monte Bello wines are getting better and better. Stylistically, it’s famously thrown in as a ringer in blind tastings of Bordeaux, because of its similarity to the Old World Cabernet blends. And just as famously, it’s often mistaken for top-Cru wines. 

Today, we’re incredibly fortunate to have a lot of Monte Bello on offer! We’ve got a range of maturities, vintages, and even sizes. This is guaranteed to be a popular list, especially among half-bottle collectors. But be warned: our last Monte Bello offer sold out in 15 minutes. And while this is an appreciably larger selection, we doubt it will last too much longer than the last list. So if anything catches your eye, definitely don’t delay, as we truly don’t know the next time we’ll amass this much of such a legendary wine.