The Ridge Master Class: Wine Blogger Tasting Series 2011

On Sunday September 25th  I joined a group of wine writers and bloggers for the 3rd edition of the 2011 Wine Blogger Tasting Series, one of the most sought after wine events hosted by Christopher Watkins of Ridge Vineyards at the Lytton Springs location in Dry Creek Valley.

I attended last year when we sat out on the crush pad and the temperature hovered around 90 degrees. This year the crush pad was in glorious use for harvest and we got to watch as the fruit came in and was hoisted into the de-stemmer. Then after tasting some carignane direct from the tap, we retreated to the barrel room where it was nice and cold.

The wines Christopher selected for the tasting were all small production library wines. Most came from stock with less than nine cases on hand. We tried wines from Monte Bello and Lytton Springs, some from vineyards I've never even heard of before.

I’m always amazed how well the Ridge wines hold up for years and years and years. I probably should not be surprised really since the age-ability of Ridge is it's common denominator. But I have very little discipline when it comes to cellaring wine and tend to drink things in the now rather then in the future.

Christopher reminds me of this crazy cool professor I knew in college who was obsessed with rare books, German literature and Swing music. His house was filled with shelves of classic and esoteric works of literature and old records.

He’d scan a shelf and pull a book out and say-- Oh have you read this? Do you know this work? Then he would read a passage aloud. Or he’d grab a record and say --You gotta hear this. He would play a piece of music and you would be so wowed by it. This professor was like a spirit guide to the volumes of written works that you just had to read. I'd leave his house with my mind slightly blown and a lengthy list of books I had to get my hands on. 

Ridge events to me are so similar, Christopher is our "spirit guide” scanning the library wines for just the right passage, just the few phrases that will jolt you, change you, make you rethink all other wines. It's a sybaritic journey of wine and poetry and the simple pleasure of letting go and dropping into what's in the glass. I love these events it like a master class for bloggers who want to be challenged and stretched in the most wonderful way. 

At some point in the day I always realize note taking is futile. I just put my pen or in this case phone down. Nothing I say will do it justice. So I just give in to the pleasure in the glass. I find it takes days to process it all. Ridge events are journeys that take you on a wild ride to the far corners of your palate and expectations. 

We also had a special treat courtesy of Richard Jennings @rjonwine who brought a mystery bottle that we tasted blind then were asked to guess the vintage, varietal and vineyard designation. I guessed 92 based on absolutely nothing but the color and was not far off, but struck out, way out, on guessing the varietal and vineyard. It turned out to be a 1990 Barbera from Rancho Pequeno. It was lovely and wonderful of Richard to bring it along to share. 

If you want a full account of the wines and tasting notes I suggest you check out the blogs of Richard Jennings @rjonwine or Fred Swan @norcalwine for full details. 

Thank you Christopher (and Brandy) for a great day at The Ridge Master Class! 

 

UPDATE-- 

Links to other blog posts from the day:

Martin Redmond -- Great re-cap of the wines we had with tasting notes.

Christopher Watkins -- Thoughts from our "spirit guide" Christopher and a groovy video. 

Ridge Lytton Springs Wine Blogger Tasting III

This past Sunday Christopher Watkins, the Tasting Room Manager for Ridge Monte Bello, held a vertical tasting of Zinfandels from the Ridge Lytton Springs Library as well some select Cabernets from the vault at Ridge Monte Bello. This was an exceptional line up of wines and one might expect a formal setting and a hushed silence of reverence for the tasting. Instead it was serious amount of fun, a relaxed and casual day of tasting out on the crush pad at Ridge Lytton Springs. It was a scorcher the day we sat down to try the wines, but the crush pad stayed a cool 80 degrees in the shade. Hard to know if this temperature affected the wines on the palate, but I felt the heat made it slightly more difficult to capture the nose.

Chris assembled a terrific slate of writers and bloggers for the event and you can a find a full roster and links to the participant’s blogs here:

It’s great to sit with a group of enthusiasts to talk and tweet about wine on a high intellectual level. Okay, so that’s not exactly what happened at my end of the table. One thing about tweeting is that it makes initial interaction rather stunted. I was actually talking to Liza on twitter @BrixChix_Liza via tweets, even though she was sitting right next to me. Oh what a weird world we live in. Eventually we lifted our eyes off our phones and met our tablemates.

I had the pleasure of meeting David Tong and Richard Jennings among many others. Also in attendance was the notorious Ron Washam who pens The Hosemaster of Wine blog. Ron is an expert blogger baiter calling out the ridiculousness of bloggers and their antics in carefully crafted and parody filled prose, so I was expecting more of a general drubbing from him that day. But instead he merely threw out a few stale zingers and behaved himself for the most part. I think maybe it’s because the people at the table were serious about wine and serious about writing about it and sharing it with others, but for the most part don’t take themselves very seriously. So it’s hard to get your hooks into someone who agrees that what they do is not brain surgery for rocket scientists. Or some other fractured metaphor of false aggrandizement.

Maybe he was just caught up in the moment of sending his first tweet.

Oh dear, Ron tweeted, the world as we know it has ended. Anyway, enough about Ron, on to the wines.

The vintages we tasted included the Lytton Spring Zinfandels from 1987, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, & 2007.

The standouts for me included:

1992– Lavender notes and on the nose and good tannins

1993—A yeasty almost lemon cupcake-y scent with long finish. I was quoted as saying this made me want to have a cigarette and I don't even smoke.

2003—Interesting salty soy like quality. Umami as Chris says. Perhaps would make for a good sushi Zin.

2005—Hints of green pepper and fruit forward with a touch of grapefruit. Me likey very muchy.

2007—Full lush and worthy of an animal sacrifice on the BBQ.

We also tasted Cabernets from Ridge Monte Bello 1991, 1992 & 1994.

I thought all the Monte Bello Cabernets were complex and multi-faceted, but the 1994 had the perfect aligning of the planets for my palate.

We discussed foods that would pair well with the wines and came up with everything from tempura to guinea pig. We also theorized that if wine had been aboard the Apollo 11 moon launch they might never have left the capsule for the first moonwalk. Imagine what might have resulted. —

“That’s one small sip for Man and the rest of this Zinfandel from Monte Bello for Me. Huston, I’m staying here in the capsule and drinking this Monte Bello. It’s literally out of this world.”

How we got on to the subject of space travel is probably my fault, but that’s the fun of tasting. Everyone has a unique frame of reference to call upon in describing wine.

Here are a few screen shots of what others had to say:

You can search twitter for the hashtag #Ridgewines and read more of the tweets that where unleashed during the tasting.

Thanks to Christopher and also to Brandy Alexander (yes, her real name) for organizing and hosting the event.