March 15, 2022 - Drinking more like a well aged claret. Floral, plums, currants, cherry and spice on the nose. Plum, cherry and currant flavors. Very soft leading to a silky smooth finish. Doubt it will improve.
November 25, 2021 - Last bottle of a case purchased for my sister's wedding in 2003. As expected from a Ridge wine, this has aged very well and is in its prime drinking window. Very smooth and still quite fruity, with berries, dusty earth, and baking spice. Held up well to rich Thanksgiving fare.
March 22, 2020 - Accompanied coronavirus trivia night with friends over the interweb. Hard to tell that this 375ml bottle was 19.5 years old: lots of fruit balanced with bright acid.
March 5, 2017 - Dinner @ Jenny/rudy. Marinated flanksteak. Next to the 2002. The 02 was a wine with lots going on compared to this being more towards fruit juice. It wasnt bad but it was outclassed. This still was very fresh with a decent nose but maybe a bit one dimensional. Decent finish bit lightish in style so it wasnt talking to us. I like the LS with age on it, it smoothes out the hard zin edges. Always fun to try vintages next to each other.
June 10, 2016 - Vindredi (Ridge Cellar Night) (Bellevue, WA): Sweet and overly raisin-y. A bit jammy, but holding up well for its age and the best of the vertical.
September 12, 2015 - This was surprisingly still delicious. Smooth with dark cherry but quite savoury. Drank it in a cellar clean out where sadly overlooked gems were extracted and mainly enjoyed. Very impressed at how good this was after all this time.
August 5, 2015 - Ridge Wine Night - 7 wines for 10 people. This was a big surprise. I had drunk my next to last bottle of this the prior week and that bottle was shot. So imagine my surprise when this final bottle turned out to be great! Lots of fruit flavors and aromas, just a restrained version from a current vintage of a Lytton Zin. It was a treat to have an aged Zin that was drinking well.
July 29, 2015 - Well past its prime. Still some hints of how good it once was. It got buried in my cellar and I missed its drinking window.
July 7, 2013 - This magnum was the last of my 2000 stored in a vino temp all these years. Ruby color to the rim. We enjoyed it with some tri-tip and 4th of July fare. It was very smooth with cherry notes and a pleasing nose. Great stuff.
April 21, 2013 - W spicey roasted chicken. Rudy visiting. Had this next to the 1999 which is a better wine. This however is still very good and it was very fresh on the nose and had great young color but was much more fruit juice than the balance that the 99 exhibited. On palate this was wonderful and finish was longish. Fruit and spice. Worked extremely well with the food.