LAYNE’S WINE GIG PRESENTS
Wine of the Year 2023
By Layne V. Witherell
Point that VIVINO app on your phone to the label of the Ridge Three Valleys Sonoma (Zinfandel blend) wine at $27.99. WOW! It is a 4.1 or 4.2 and that tells you exactly nothing. If you really want to take a post-VIVINO phone app dive, you might enjoy reading a book to really see why this wine is great.
Ridge started as a turn of the century winery in the Los Gatos hills in California. Of course, prohibition wiped them out. Then in the 1960’s some Stanford University people started it up again. Paul Draper was one of the partners as well as the winemaker. He can best be characterized as a philosopher farmer. They already had great cabernet, as Montebello Vineyards shows up on your phone.
Enter the genius.
With cabernet getting pricey, Draper searched for an equal quality alternative. It might be the zinfandel grape? Most zins in California were rustic, well-aged Italian styled wines. Being a philosopher and student he found THE book: “The Wine Press and the Cellar,” by E.H. Rixford, 1883. Rixford, a California winery owner spent years in Bordeaux studying the techniques step by step of the greatest chateau. He recorded them all complete with the exact grape variety plantings of famous vineyards.
Draper then went on a quest to locate dry farmed old zinfandel vines that could be made in a new direction – in the style of the famed red Bordeaux. This is natural wine without the hype, boho labeling or adorableness.
The Three Valleys blend has more obvious fruit than cabernet and is easier to drink when young. Petite Sirah is a symbiotic vineyard accompaniment, lending color, fragrance and spice. The good news is that they both ripen at the same time, saving worries about weather. Ridge wines can lay down and age for decades as the winery uses specially selected American oak barrels for a hint of toast complexity.
