Ridge - Monte Bello Santa Cruz Mountains Red Blend 2021
Price: $279.99
| Producer | Ridge |
 | |
| Country | California |
| |
| Region | Santa Cruz Mountains |
| |
| Varietal | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| |
| Sku | 35826 |
| |
|
The Ridge Monte Bello Red Wine, one of the world's most iconic wines, stands tall again. First produced in 1962, this wine continues to amaze me. This vintage excels with aromas and flavors of early summer blackberries, fragrant spices, and hints of chalk. Enjoy it with a grilled American Ribeye or a French Entrecote.
--Wilfred Wong of Wine.com: 100 Points
Ridge Description
Deep ruby color. Ripe mountain blackberry and cassis, anise, lavender, violets, sweet toasted oak and earthy, mineral components. Bold fruit at entry coupled with fine-grained tannins and firm acidity. Layered and complex mid-palate with a long, intense finish.
Blend: 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot
James Suckling: 100 Points
Tightly wound at this stage, the wine is massively concentrated, taut, yet trim and medium-bodied. Aged in 100% new oak, predominantly American, it offers espresso, blackberry, black cherry and vanilla bean flavors with a linear intensity and drive. Known to age and improve for several decades, this is one of California’s most collectible cabs and from a classic, age-worthy vintage. Best from 2031.
Decanter Magazine: 98 Points
It's a journey. This wine offers high mountain pine bough, petrichor, and floral predominance of violet, high mountain lavender, and scrub. The palate is crisp and taut, with bright berries, blood orange and savoury mint. A true mountain wine with alpine herbs and wildflowers that lift deep fruit tones of blackberries, figs and muddled mint leaves. Leather, crushed stone and smoked cedar plank come together in America's most singular and iconic Cabernet Sauvignon.
Wine Enthusiast: 97 Points
This ageworthy classic is a blend of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot this vintage. The nose offers focused aromas of blackberry, toasted herb and light caramel with a hint of cocoa dust. The firm, leathery palate feels like it will last forever, as waves of berry, herb, pepper, clove and pencil shavings flow on. Drink now-2045.
Vinous: 97 Points
The 2021 Monte Bello is a top-tier wine from this reverential site in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The blend contains quite a bit more Merlot than usual (31%), which is a reflection of reduced Cabernet yields stemming from the drought-riddled 2021 growing season. Broad, infinitely layered and rooted in deep spice tones, the 2021 opens with a forceful kick of wild blackberry and orange peel, delving deeper into complex layers of black olive, new leather, violet and sweet pipe tobacco. Surprisingly giving and undeniably fresh, the 2021 is precise, laser-focused and propulsive, stationing the midline of the palate with an army of well-honed tannins and culminating in a finish that seemingly never ends. This is everything Monte Bello should be.
Wine Advocate: 96 Points
2021 marks the start of a new era at Ridge, now under the stewardship of Trester Goetting and longtime Ridge veteran John Olney following the departure of veteran winemaker Eric Baugher. The 2021 Monte Bello is 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot due to drought-induced low yields, particularly in Cabernet Sauvignon. It is already assertive and polished on the nose, with aromas of cassis, dried tobacco, green peppercorn, mint and figs springing from the glass. The palate is suave and refined with electrifying energy and persistence, leading to a sophisticated finish of ripe black fruits and drying, layered stately tannins. Even in this embryonic stage, the perpetual pedigree of Monte Bello is here in spades; cellar for a decade and enjoy over the following two and beyond.
Wine Spectator: 95 Points
A strapping, muscular Cabernet, with mouthwatering notes of licorice snap, rye and apple wood framing the burly core of red and black currant paste flavors. A long, grippy cast iron accent drives the finish along, with echoes of sweet bay leaf and tobacco. This is distinctive and built to last. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Best from 2028 through 2040.
