History
Perrone, a San Francisco doctor, made his first vintage under the Monte Bello name in 1892. His nephew expanded the ranch past 500 acres before dying in 1936; the winery closed in 1943 and the vines were abandoned. William Short bought the wreck in the 1940s and replanted Cabernet. In 1959 four Stanford Research Institute engineers, Dave Bennion, Hew Crane, Charlie Rosen and Howard Ziedler, took it on, re-bonded the winery and made the first commercial Ridge wine from the 1962 vintage. Paul Draper joined in 1969 and stayed forty-seven vintages, retiring as chief executive and head winemaker in 2016 and remaining chairman. Otsuka Pharmaceutical of Japan bought Ridge at the end of 1986 and owns it still.
The Site
The vineyard climbs from about 1,300 to 2,700 feet along the ridge above Cupertino, looking down on Silicon Valley on one side and toward the Pacific on the other. The soils are the point: green Franciscan stone and clay laid over decomposing limestone, a combination almost absent from California's other great Cabernet ground. Yields run under two tons to the acre. The vineyard has been fully certified organic since the 2022 harvest. Published acreage varies widely by source and by whether the leased and component ranches are counted.
Vines and Blocks
Cabernet Sauvignon dominates, with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot alongside it, a little Chardonnay, and Zinfandel on the lower ground. The estate is really four historic ranches farmed as one. Perrone is the original 1885 planting at the summit near 2,600 feet, around the old stone winery. Torre, between about 2,070 and 2,390 feet, was William Short's ranch and has supplied the estate Chardonnay since 1962. Rousten is farmed in part under lease. Jimsomare, the old Klein Ranch planted in 1888 by the Alsatian restaurateur Pierre Klein, sits lowest at 1,400 to 2,000 feet; the Schwabacher family renamed it in 1936 for Jim, Sophie and Marie, still owns it, and has leased it to Ridge since 1996. Its Zinfandel is bottled on its own.
The Wines
Monte Bello is the Cabernet, assembled from the ridge's best lots each vintage. The 1971 placed fifth in the 1976 Judgment of Paris, the second American wine in the tasting. At the thirtieth-anniversary re-tasting in 2006, held simultaneously in Napa and London, the same 1971 finished first, eighteen points clear of the wine behind it. California took the top five places and the best French bottle came sixth. Few results have done more to establish that this ridge belongs in the argument.