by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

Had a free day afore RhoneRangers, so went up to The Ridge to taste a few new things. Tasting was blind and notes rather brief:

1. Ridge MonteBello 2000: Very dark color; rather cedary/smoky slight tarry/earthy rich complex nose; smoother cedary/toasty/tarry some blackcurranty/Cab polished flavor; very long some tannic finish; yrs to go.
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2. Ridge MonteBello 2004: One of their trial assemblages of the '4, which is still being worked. Near-black color; strong/ripe spicy/peppery/black curranty/Cab slight cedary/perfumed talc bit earthy/dusty//complex nose; big/ripe/lush light cedary black curranty/peppery/earthy/dusty flavor; very long ripe/blackcurranty finish w/ hard tannins in the aftertaste; obviously needs age; not a lot of oak showing yet.
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3. Ridge MonteBello 2002: Very dark/black color; strong smoky/pungent/oak/cedary quite spicy/ lush/ripe classic Ridge perfume nose; beautiful lush/ripe very spicy strong cedary/pungent loads of ripe fruit complex flavor; very long/lingering some tannic very ripe/lush very spicy blackcurranty finish that goes on and on; a terrific MonteBello that needs age; killer wine.
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4. Ridge Independence School ( 15.4%; 0.8% rs) 2003: Med.dark color; strong ripe/blackberry/Zin quite spicy/lush some complex nose; slightly off-dry very lush/blackberry/boysenberry/Zin slight dusty/old vine flavor; long ripe blackberry/boysenberry finish w/ some light tannins; carries the r.s and the alc very well w/ no overripe or raisened character; quite a nice Zin.
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5. Ridge Geyserville 2003: Very dark color; terrific very spicy/peppery ripe/lush very blackberry/ black cherry flavor w/ slight oak/pungent nose; med.tart rich ripe blackberry very spicy some cedary/pencilly/oak flavor; med.long blackberry/Zin finish w/ some tannins; quite balanced and very spicy; a classic Gysrville.
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6. Ridge LyttonSprings 2003: More complex toasty/pungent/oak more bright raspberry/ Zinberry/blackberry nose; tart bright/zippy raspberry/blackberry/Zin slight pungent/toasty/oak flavor; very long bright/spicy/raspberry/blackberry/Zin finish w/ some tannins; seems more structured than the Gysrvlle; another outstanding LS.

1. It was a busy day up on TheRidge. A sexual harrasment seminar from a high-powered lawyer for the staff; a visiting Canadian journalist later on in the morning; a visiting Japanese journalist in the afternoon. Fortunately, they were able to squeeze plain ol' TomHill (and Larry) in for a visit late in the afternoon. Mostly, I just wanted to see friends there, but they wanted us to try a few things. PaulDraper & Eric Baugher (winemaker at MonteBello wnry) sat down with us to taste a few things blind. They seemed genuinely interested in our comments on the wines. Bohdi (Paul's dog) seemed intent on soaking up all the attention she could garnish.
After the tasting, they were doing a retirement party for Eulalio Rios, a 30+ year cellar worker there at Ridge, a man I had seen several times but never formally met. It was a large group (50-70) of mostly Eulalio's friends/family/co-workers (his son Miguel also works there) and then many of the Ridge staff (Paul, Eric, John Olney, Marc, Donn, Dave Gates, Violetta Pristel, Wilma...lots of long-time friends). After Paul gave a wonderful tribute speech to Eulalio (in Spanish..so I missed most of it); they started opening a bunch of btls from the library. Unfortunately, I was sitting next to Maureen and visiting intensely; so no notes. Larry was more on top of it than me. Alas, the '75 YorkCreek PetiteSirah was corked; an old and dear friend that I'd have loved to taste.
I had a dinner date w/ Alan Rath and Drew Spaulding that evening at Greens, nearby where I was staying. I glanced over at one table a noticed a scary number of (empty) tequila btls, so decided I'd best make a hasty retreat down MonteBelloRd afore traffic got worse. After getting lost in ThePresidio, managed to make it to my motel and Greens in the nick of time.
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2. MonteBello Cabs: These first three were tasted blind w/ no hint of what they were. I figured they were probably MBs, but it was not at all obvious Cab. This is a wine I buy every year, sight unseen, a no-brainer at the futures price of $65.
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3. IndependenceSchool: This is a new wine for Ridge. It was described in the SFChron article as a second label Ridge to use as a sink for their overripe lots of LS/Gysrvlle Zin. It is not. It is a btlg of several vnyds that Ridge has bought from for a number of yrs near Geyserville vnyd but of condiserably different soil.
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4. LS/Gysrvlle: I thought the '02 LS was one of the best Ridge LS in some time. This one may be right up there as well. The Gysrvlle showed lots of primary/blackberry fruit and not the other things you usually find in it. Another classic Gysrvlle.
Tom