April 14, 2024 - Opened for 30 min inside the fridge, the temp was a bit warm so we chilled it a bit more. Had it with salmon.
The color is pale yellow, nose mute for now, the body is medium plus, fresh tropical and buttery at the moment. Time will help.
Drank out of a 375ml.
90+ HOLD.
March 27, 2024 - Seems this is really hit or miss with most people. Personally it was a hit. Light gold color. Nose of burnt popcorn, peach and orange. On the palate it's funky, buttery, orange and sweet lemon. Burnt pop-corn again, peaches and some minerality. Rich, waxy mouthfeel and a surprisingly long finish. Really fun wine and just another thing Ridge does right in my opinion
February 27, 2024 - Not my style. Didn’t take great notes but other reviews are spot on. Funky and mineral driven. Medium to full bodied.
February 15, 2024 - Tasted at Wine & Spirits Top 100 NYC. Aged in used American oak barrels. Natural malolactic fermentation, neither encouraged or discouraged. Native fermentation all around. This seems like a slightly new methodology over the last 5-8 years. The wine is showing matchstick/reduction, unlike vintages I’ve had around the 2016 timeframe. Very briny, crisp yet dense and chewy. Citrus is there but it seems more mineral driven. Needs time…
February 15, 2024 - Obviously super young. Nose of matchstick, like a very new German Riesling.
The palate is funky and saline, with orange peel and green apple. With air it fattens up and gives up a waxy lanolin texture and fuller peachy fruit.
It's very interesting right now but I'd like to give it more time.
December 13, 2023 - light golden yellow, lots of clarity, silvery hue
Nose: peach, tangerine, dried pineapple, orange pith, white pepper, wax, cumin, cardamon, wax, touch minerals, oak
Pal: unripe white peach, tangerine rind, white pepper, cumin, wax, cardamon, lime, touch minerals, sea salt, oak
Feel: medium, full
Finish: medium, long
T9 (could be an 8)
October 21, 2023 - This is so barnyard funky. I really love lambic/geueze and this really hits a lot of those same fermentation notes
October 6, 2023 - Floral nose. Herbs, honey and some baking spices. Vey nice.
July 28, 2023 - While this wine was totally dominated by oak (buttery popcorn and coconut shavings) on pop and pour, 45 minutes of aeration in a Cabernet decanter (!) coaxed out a totally different wine.
Still quite oaky on the nose, but now joined by very pretty citrus fruit and a nice shale minerality. Medium-bodied, the palate has good but not electric acidity, more citrus and oak and mineral notes. Quite saline. The finish is long and points towards salinity and white fruit.
This is a totally transformed wine - I suggest if you find this wine over oaked, give it some time to breathe first. Quite Chassegne in character.
July 18, 2023 - I do not like this wine. At first I thought that maybe I just didn't understand it, or perhaps the style didn't appeal to me, but now I also believe that this is not a particularly good wine. If you've got time to waste, allow me to explain my relatively inexperienced, but strongly felt, opinion...
As a relatively new Ridge Montebello member, I've tasted from the winery and from personal bottles the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Ridge Estate Chardonnays. On all three I have gotten nothing but toasted/burnt buttery popcorn on the nose and very little else (other than some relatively pleasant structure) on the palate.
Most of the time I thought "fine, this just isn't my preferred style." However, I recently had the chance to semi-blind taste (I knew the bottles, but not which were which) some quality west coast and Côte de Beaune chardonnay. In this tasting, I found some wines with citrus notes, florality, pleasant oak, flintiness, even some other buttered popcorn notes akin to those I found in the Ridge on previous occasions. But one stuck out as a sore thumb. This "flintiness" and "matchstick" quality, or, as it appears to me, overcooked buttered popcorn note, dominated one wine. I could get nothing else; no fruit, no minerality, limited oak other than what appeared via the buttered popcorn sensation. It had to be the Ridge. I called it as such, and I was right. I don't think I'd ever call this wine incorrectly blind.
Also in the blind tasting was the 2020 Vincent & Sophie Morey Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru "Les Baudines". This had the same matchstick note, approaching some popcorn aromas, but it backed it up with fruit, florality, and minerality! Tasting this (and other chardonnay of similar and differing styles) alongside the Ridge made it so obvious to me that the Ridge Chardonnay completely lacked complexity, nuance, and any sense of restraint.
The Ridge Chardonnay is one-dimensional, consistently overbearing in its style, and is outclassed by other wines in a similar price bracket with a similar style. To make matters worse, I don't like it.
Side note: I give it 86 points, and not less, for three reasons: 1. if I liked that aroma, this would deliver it in spades, and in a package that has nice structure and a long finish; 2. because wtf are points; and 3. because maybe this evolves with age, and I'm opening a baby. But even in this case, you gotta make wine that's quality in its youth. I could open a 2019 Montebello and have a great time, even though doing so would be a misallocation of funds.