Community Tasting Note

Purple Grillz Likes this wine:

Thursday, August 17, 2017 - I have had Monte Bello before I understood what Paul Draper does with this wine. I was a fan of Lytton Springs, and Zins so I foolishly cracked a young Monte Bello. These wines are unrelenting beasts of acidity, tannins, and mouth puckering astringency. I finally gave this wine the respect it deserves. I bought a bottle old as me and drank some on my birthday.

I don't think I will ever think a Monte Bello is delicious, it just seems that from the young ones I tried and the this one, they are just too subtle for my palate. Their acidity is so front and center without any black fruit, animal, cocoa, herbs, backbone that it's hard for me to love them. It's just an absolute party of sumac, rose petals, pomegranate, incense, and cured lemons that it begs to be drank with food. And we had it with freshly made stuffed grape leaves and summer tomatoes and Labna, it was a beautiful meal! I just can't wrap my head around paying the kind of money this juice costs when it's only enjoyable with food.

I do see the quality of the wine making, 42 years old and it's still doing what it's much younger versions are doing but in a more harmonious way. The tannins have melted, the acidity has mellowed and whole has become greater than the sum of the parts.

I also learned that he studied with Chateau Latour in some capacity before starting Ridge so I picked up a bottle of 1970 Latour and 1975 Les Forts and not surprisingly they both absolutely took Monte Bello apart. As they should but I did see the DNA of longevity. All 3 wines were so fresh, not a hint of tiring any time soon, all 3 were lively after 2 days of oxygen. If you can find a 75 Monte Bello in good condition, try one. They should all be drank soon.

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