After a wonderful week in California, our last visit was at Ridge in Santa Cruz just south of San Fransisco. Ridge is beautiful, situated in around 800 meters altitude, and it is a pretty long drive up the hills in a bus. Off course, we tried some of the winery’s most stunning wines, and I am posting some pictures – and tasting notes, here:

Imagine the view from the edge. On the foot of the hills in the background is the earth ‘plates’, so you can image that Ridge Winery is very exposed to earthquakes.

Brand: Partida Limitada

Winery: Gimenez Riili

Vintage: 2006

Varietal: 50% Malbec, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot

Winemaking: temperature controlled pre-fermentative maceration, traditional fermentation and maceration, malolactic fermentation in the barrels, careful filtering

Aging: 10 months in new French oak barrels

Bottle aging: 14 months

Average Price: € 18

Two weeks ago I dodged the rain for seventy five feet across 54th Street south through the building of 520 Madison out on 53rd to take a hard right into Alto where I had been invited by a friend to be his guest at a dinner and vertical tasting of Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande hosted by Clive Coates (Master of Wine, the 72nd MW) who authored Cote D’Or and more recently The Wines of Burgundy.

Coates was on a five week tour of the U.S. doing wine dinners, charity events and other wine related appearances which were apparently all linked to Burgundy until a Nashville based collector who is an investor in Alto convinced his snowy bearded eminence to do this dinner on a night they both had free in New York.

Coates began with the history of the Chateau with the requisite mention of the Dutch draining the swamp that was Bordeaux transforming it into the land that is Bordeaux. The estate was founded in 1689 and was divided in the 19th century due to Napoleonic laws but was run more or less as a whole until 1860. Both properties received deuxieme cru (second growth) status in the 1855 Classification. The sibling is known in Bordeaux shorthand as Pichon Baron. Pichon Lalande is just to the west of first growth property Chateau Latour in the southeastern corner of Pauillac. The vineyard holdings spill over into St. Julien and Coates noted that until the early 60′s around an 1/8 of total production was bottled as St. Julien instead of Paulliac (he also noted that Lafite had similar geographical issues on the northern side of Pauillac with St. Estephe but Lafite was never forced to signify anything on thier label…)

‘Were not gonna take it!’ Its time for great wine that won’t break your wallet. Here’s the second episode on my series of wines that you can drink a case of and still be able to call your bank the following Monday. It is time to party.

Winery: Alta Vista (Blend)

Vintage: 2004

Appellation: Mendoza

Varietal: Malbec, Cabernet, Syrah, Tempranillo, Petit Verdot

Oak: 12 months in French oak.

Average Price: $14

Winery: Domain du Pegau, Cuvee da Capo

Vintage: 2003

Appellation: Chateauneuf du Pape, Cuvee da Capo

Varietal: Grenache, Syrah predominate

Average Price: $600 (may be considerably more at auction)