This Iconic California Winery Changed the Industry Forever — Here are 6 Bottles to Try

2023 Grenache Blanc

“Ridge winemaker John Olney sources Grenache Blanc (and a little Picpoul and Roussanne) from several Paso Robles vineyards for this melon-pear flavored white; full-bodied and mouth-coating, but with lime-citrus acid with a salty zip on the end.”

2022 Paso Robles Zinfandel

“1920s era vines at the Benito Dusi Ranch in Paso Robles provide the fruit for this impossible-not-to-love Zinfandel. It’s bright and juicy, with classic Zinberry flavors (basically, if there was a berry that somehow crossed strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry, and blackberry, that’d be a Zinberry).”

2021 Lytton Estate Petite Sirah

“Sourced from Ridge’s Lytton Estate property, this powerhouse red deserves either a few years in a cellar or else a large and very juicy steak. The flavors are all purple and red fruit, plums and mulberries, embraced by emphatic tannins and a tangy, mineral finish.”

2022 Lytton Springs

“This is the 50th anniversary vintage of Lytton Springs, and it’s as distinctive and complex as ever. Blackberry-rich and laced with clove and mocha hints, it’s structured but plush all at once. Like most of Ridge’s red wines, this Zinfandel-driven blend goes into American oak barrels, which can give a distinctive vanilla note; because only 17% of those barrels were new in this vintage, that’s more like a faint, alluring whiff, which lifts above the wine’s juicy, dark, lasting fruit.”

2022 Geyserville

“The heart of this wine comes from the “old patch” of Ridge’s Whitten Ranch vineyard, a gnarled, seven-acre block of vines (Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, and others) planted in 1891—they’re some of California’s oldest. The 2022 vintage is classic Geyserville, with blackberry-plum-currant fruit, warm spice notes, and soft tannins. Drink it now, cellar it for a few years, or hide it away and open it in a couple of decades.”

2021 Monte Bello

“Ridge’s Monte Bello is one of California’s great Cabernet-based wines, in this vintage a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, and 5% Petit Verdot. The aromas spring from the glass—red cherries and cassis, a hint of vanilla oak, violets—and are echoed in the flavor, which is carried along on fine-grained, substantial tannins and lifting acidity.

“Tasted in October 2024, it’s still incredibly young, and has decades ahead of it. Wine lovers used to top-level Napa Valley Cabernets won’t find the oomph of extraction and richness they’re used to here—Ridge’s high-altitude Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards don’t work that way—but this is a thrillingly complex red, deceptively powerful and lasting, and not to be missed.”