The Top 10 California Wines to Collect Right Now

Wine Enthusiast

July 2024

At Ridge Vineyards, we call our winemaking style “pre-industrial.” We believe that modern, increasingly industrial wines lack the complexity, the sense of place, and the ability to age and develop. This philosophy has been our foundation since 1962 and continues to earn us recognition for our fine wines.

Pre-Industrial Winemaking at its Finest

Wine Enthusiast recently built a list of the top California wines to collect, and our Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon ranked #2. This list was built based on “wines whose first vintage was at least 15 years ago, those widely regarded to hold or improve in quality with time, ones traded most frequently in the U.S. and abroad as well as bottlings with high price appreciation.” Below is an excerpt from the article.

“Monte Bello’s ability to improve with age is almost unparalleled,” says [Elaine] Chukan Brown. “It’s impressive in its youth, but older Monte Bello is a pleasure. It’s one of the clearest examples of why fine wine benefits from aging.”

David Parker, founder of Benchmark Wine Group, one of the largest buyers of fine and rare wine, nods to Ridge’s “genius winemaking,” which, he says, has made it one of “the most respected classic Cabernet in California.”

Monte Bello Vineyard & Wine

Monte Bello is first and foremost a wine of place. That place – high atop the Santa Cruz Mountains underlain by decomposing limestone and Franciscan rock – produces a wine unlike any other. It is our belief that this vineyard, with its very low-yielding vines (less than two tons per acre), is capable of creating a wine of great significance, depth, complexity, and aging potential.