1978 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Bello

Community Tasting Notes (48) Avg Score: 92.4 points

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  2/11/2023 - PGIF Likes this wine: 94 Points

  I don’t always drink California Cabernet, but when I do I prefer Ridge. This was just a beautiful bottle of wine, all elements in place, full of mature fruit, long tobacco and anise finish. I poured my 98-year-old mother a glass thinking I would get to finish it at the end of the evening but she drank the whole glass. That good.

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  2/5/2023 - Cailles wrote: flawed

  30x California 1978: Ridge Monte Bello Flawed
  So many wines from this great Californian vintage at the age of 45 certainly qualifies as a “once in a lifetime” event. A few observations: 1) The quality was very high (almost all my ratings above 90pts). And only four faulty wines (2x corked, 2x over the hill/flawed, sadly those two were the Ridge Monte Bello and the Phelps Insignia). 2) The wines are ready to drink, the tannins have melted but the tension and freshness remain high - across the board. 3) There is still lots of fruit left and I was surprised how most wines didn’t show lots of tertiary aromas (find me the Bdx 1982 without tertiary aromas!). IMO, more than a handful of the wines could continue to improve for a few years. 4) Style wise, these are obviously quite different from today’s Napa wines with much less ripeness and more mineral accents. But hardly any wine we had would be mistaken for a Bordeaux in a blind tasting (unlike 80s/90s Dominus). 5) Best reds: Inglenook Limited Cask, Beaulieu GDL Reserve, Stags Leap Cask 23 4.5l (all 96pts), Heitz Bella Oaks, Simi Reserve, Stag’s Leap Cask 23 0.75l (all 95pts). The best wine overall, however, was the magical Late Harvest Riesling from Phelps (98pts).
  
  TN: Sadly flawed, intensely chemical on the nose. This is quite sad as the wine showed a lot of depth and intensity and could have been great.

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  1/30/2023 - sirpat00 wrote: 92 Points

  Grand tasting of 1978 California wines, mostly from Napa. Main takeaways: i/ surprisingly high quality on average for wines that were not intended for such long-term aging with plenty of primary fruit left, ii/ but within the detail nonetheless a broad range with the worst few suffering from clear signs of fatigue while the best showed hardly age, iii/ top wines were Phelps Cab Sauv (97), Firestone Cab Sauv (95), and Beaulieu George de Latour Private Reserve (95). Full list sorted by score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  The fruit profile was characterized by a cooler, more red type of berries along with malt notes. The palate was fresh, had tension and structure and appeared in good balance. Nothing really to complain, but just didn’t tickle any nerves with me.

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  1/28/2023 - G_H wrote:

  1978 California Cabernet Horizontal: Sweet, irish moss, cola, some leather and a hint of brett. More evolved than the last bottle of this. I'm not sure that this was a perfect bottle.

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  11/12/2022 - Wine Canuck wrote: 95 Points

  An epic dinner of classic wines: This pours light ruby in the glass with medium bricking. The nose is lifted and complex evolving over the course of several hours. Highlights include charcoal, plums, whisps of vanilla, orange pekoe tea, celery salt, sweet old cedar, and mixed red and black currants. The palate is just lovely with bright red currants turning to medium minus tannin and medium plus acid. The finish lingers impressively on sweet cedar and black tea. Just an absolute classic here from ridge. Just a little behind the 1976 I had a few years back, but lovely all the same.

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