Monte Bello 2017

Ridge Vineyards (hentet 17. okt. 2026): 2017 Monte Bello – 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot, 4% Cabernet Franc; mark: Monte Bello; AVA: Santa Cruz Mountains; alkohol 13.7%. Smagsnote (producentens tekst, engelsk): Opaque purple-ruby color. Ripe blackberry fruit, barrel spice, anise, violets, and crushed limestone. Opulent mountain fruits on entry, fennel, sweet oak, well-structured tannins, and firm acid. Powerful complexity and tremendous length to the finish. EB (1/18) Årgangen (producentens tekst, engelsk): Heavy winter rains saturated Monte Bello’s fractured limestone sub-soil, replenishing the vines’ water resources. Warm summer days, with unusually cold nights, slowly ripened the crop for an October harvest. By early winter, as malolactics finished, the wines were blind-tasted for assemblage. The final blend was made in May. Showing beautiful fruit and serious complexity in its youth, it will develop greater secondary flavors over the next thirty years. Vækstsæsonen (producentens tekst, engelsk): Rainfall: 44.2 inches (above normal) Bloom: June Weather: A cool spring affected sets. Warm spells in summer pushed the vines along. A Labor Day heat wave ripened the grapes nicely. Vinifikation (producentens tekst, engelsk): Harvest Dates: 21 September – 24 October Grapes: Average Brix 24.9˚ Selection: Twenty-three Monte Bello parcels TA: 7.42 g/L pH: 3.48 Fermentation: Grapes destemmed, 100% whole berry fermentation. Automated berry sorting. Fermented on the native yeasts. Pressed at nine days. Natural malolactic. Barrels: 100% new air-dried oak; 95% American, 5% French Aging: Seventeen months in barrel All estate grown Monte Bello Vineyard grapes, organically farmed, hand-harvested, destemmed and sorted; fermented on the native yeasts; full malolactic on the naturally occurring bacteria; 0.10 g/L calcium carbonate added to moderate the high natural acidity in two of the twenty-nine fermenters; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur 35ppm at crush, 92ppm during aging; pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions. Historie (producentens tekst, engelsk): In 1886, high in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the first Monte Bello vineyards were planted, and winery construction begun. A first vintage from the young vines followed in 1892. During Prohibition (1920-1933), the vineyard was not fully maintained; some vines survived into the late 30’s, but by the 1940s they were effectively abandoned. Eight acres of cabernet sauvignon were replanted in 1949. These were the source of the first Ridge Monte Bello (1962) and subsequent vintages until 1974 when younger blocks replanted in the 1960’s were considered for inclusion. Since then, the historic vineyards on the ridge have gradually been replanted.