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Red dry
Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Estate 2021 is a California red with mountain origins, where Ridge’s house style is revealed through a restrained, structured and long-lasting character. The wine comes from the Monte Bello Estate vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation and is made from 84% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Merlot. This is a Cabernet style based not on expressive power, but on precision, local character and maturity potential.
The aroma is dominated by notes of blackcurrant, plum, tobacco, graphite and dark flowers, complemented by restrained oak spice. Ridge shapes this wine in such a way that the fruit remains concentrated but not overloaded, so the aromatic profile is more reminiscent of a classic, mineral and disciplined Cabernet than a sweetly ripe New World style.
The wine is medium-bodied, with a firm structure, with bright acidity, ripe but well-controlled tannins and a long aftertaste.
The wine’s character is strongly shaped by the terroir of the Monte Bello Mountains. The estate vineyards are located at elevations of 1,300–2,670 feet, are not irrigated (no artificial supplemental irrigation), and the soil is composed of flaking limestone overlain by a mixture of Franciscan greenstone and clay loam. These conditions help maintain not only concentration but also minerality, freshness, and a classic structure that makes this wine mature more slowly and elegantly.
Hand-picked, farm-grown grapes were selected, fermented as 100% full clusters with native yeasts, and the wine was then aged for 19 months in 100% air-dried American oak barrels, half of which were new. Malolactic fermentation occurred naturally, in keeping with Ridge’s philosophy of minimal intervention. As a result, the wine maintains a clear balance of fruit and place, with the oak acting as an element of structure rather than decoration.
Serve at 16-18 °C with game, beef steaks, thick red meat stews with wild mushrooms, and mature cheeses.
Though born in the early sixties (In 1962, Ridge made its first Monte Bello, two years later - Zinfandel) to the post-Prohibition world of modern California winemaking, Ridge relies on nature and tradition rather than technology. Our pre-industrial approach is straightforward: find intense, flavorful grapes; intrude upon the process only when necessary; draw the fruit’s distinctive character and richness into the wine.Interestingly, Monte Bello has often been called America’s First Growth, as it is the finest domestic example of a classic Bordeaux blend in which cabernet sauvignon predominates.
