Ridge Monte Bello 2006 750ml

Name: Ridge Monte Bello 2006 750ml
Brand: Ridge
SKU: 951927
Price: 265.56 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 92 (4 reviews)

Case of 6

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SKU 951927

$1,593.36/case

$265.56/bottle

Tariffs included

Availability: This is a Long-term Pre-arrival item and is available for online ordering only. This item will ship on a future date after a 4-8 months transfer time. For more about Pre-arrival orders, see FAQ.

Pre-arrival

Case Only

Minimum order 6 bottles

WA 94pts

JD 94pts

JS 93pts

WS 87pts

See professional reviews

As it approaches age twelve, the 2006 Monte Bello is still quite reserved on the nose and on the palate, unwinding in the glass with a bouquet of cassis, cherries, pencil lead, dark chocolate, cigar box and dried rose petal. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, layered and still firmly structured, carrying considerable extract and concluding with chalky grip. Rich, concentrated and powerful, the raw materials are very impressive but they’re still wrapped up in some formidable structure. Eric Baugher describes the 2006 Monte Bello as “a sleeper vintage: backward and tannic when it was young, and released in a challenging economy,” and that’s the case today. Like the 1995 vintage, I suspect this will be a Monte Bello that really hits its stride at age 20 rather than age ten, but patient consumers with time on their side should give it serious consideration.

Country: United States
Region: California
Appellation: Santa Cruz County
Sub Appellation: Santa Cruz Mountains

Size: 750ml
Color: Red

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SKU: 951927 Category: Pre-arrival

More about this item

Winery

Ridge

Shop all from Ridge

Varietal

Cabernet Sauvignon

By far and away the most recognized and widely grown red wine grape varietal in the world is the Cabernet Sauvignon. First cultivated in the 18th century in France, this wonderful cross of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc grapes has long since been the most important varietal for red wines across the globe. Now grown everywhere from its native France to the furthest reaches of the New World, Cabernet Sauvignon is adored and prized by wineries for its hardiness and resistance to rot, as well as its large and sharp flavors and wonderful capability for fine aging Indeed, many of the finest wines of history and the modern age would be simply unimaginable without Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, with the famed wineries of Bordeaux and other important regions using it as the primary grape in their oak aged produce. High tannin levels, acidity and powerful flavors are the characteristics most commonly associated with this varietal, however, when blended and slowly aged, it is capable of a world of flavors and aromas unmatched by any other grape.

Country

United States

Of all the New World wine countries, perhaps the one which has demonstrated the most flair for producing high quality wines - using a combination of traditional and forward-thinking contemporary methods - has been the United States of America. For the past couple of centuries, the United States has set about transforming much of its suitable land into vast vineyards, capable of supporting a wide variety of world-class grape varietals which thrive on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coastlines. Of course, we immediately think of sun-drenched California in regards to American wines, with its enormous vineyards responsible for the New World's finest examples of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot based wines, but many other states have taken to viticulture in a big way, with impressive results. Oregon, Washington State and New York have all developed sophisticated and technologically advanced wine cultures of their own, and the output of U.S wineries is increasing each year as more and more people are converted to their produce.

Region

California

California as a wine producing region has grown in size and importance considerably over the past couple of centuries, and today is the proud producer of more than ninety percent of the United States' wines. Indeed, if California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, with a vast range of vineyards covering almost half a million acres. The secret to California's success as a wine region has a lot to do with the high quality of its soils, and the fact that it has an extensive Pacific coastline which perfectly tempers the blazing sunshine it experiences all year round. The winds coming off the ocean cool the vines, and the natural valleys and mountainsides which make up most of the state's wine regions make for ideal areas in which to cultivate a variety of high quality grapes.

Appellation

Santa Cruz County

Ratings & Reviews

WA 94pts

Wine Advocate

As it approaches age twelve, the 2006 Monte Bello is still quite reserved on the nose and on the palate, unwinding in the glass with a bouquet of cassis, cherries, pencil lead, dark chocolate, cigar box and dried rose petal. On the palate, it's full-bodied, layered and still firmly structured, carrying considerable extract and concluding with chalky grip. Rich, concentrated and powerful, the raw materials are very impressive but they're still wrapped up in some formidable structure. Eric Baugher describes the 2006 Monte Bello as "a sleeper vintage: backward and tannic when it was young, and released in a challenging economy," and that's the case today. Like the 1995 vintage, I suspect this will be a Monte Bello that really hits its stride at age 20 rather than age ten, but patient consumers with time on their side should give it serious consideration.

JD 94pts

Jeb Dunnuck

The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Bello comes from a warmer, generous year and is 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 10% Petite Verdot, and the balance Cabernet Franc. It’s still youthfully colored and has classic Cabernet notes of crème de cassis, lead pencil, and vanilla oak. This medium to full-bodied effort is just now at the early stages of maturity and is silky, graceful, and elegant on the palate, with its still-present structure beautifully integrated into the wine. You can safely crack bottles any time over the coming two decades.

JS 93pts

James Suckling

Meaty, with notes of soy sauce and hot dry earth, this is ripe and fleshy, the tannins now softened to silkiness. Plenty of ripe black fruit and a hint of sweetness, but nothing opulent. Good length, but not that complex at the finish. A cuvee of 70% cabernet sauvignon, 20% merlot and 10% petit verdot. Tasted at the Thomas Kammeier Monte Bello vertical. Drink or hold.

WS 87pts

Wine Spectator

Mature and elegantly styled, this is lightly aromatic, with modest cedar, currant, anise and dried berry notes fading on the finish, where the tannins turn dusty. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. -- 2006 California Cabernet blind retrospective (December 2015). Drink now. Tasted twice, with consistent notes. 4,502 cases made.

Winery Notes

The Monte Bello (originally Monte Bello Cabernet; until 1975, 100% cabernet) is the wine that introduced Ridge to the world, and the world to Ridge. It is a blend of bordeaux varietals. Cabernet sauvignon still predominates; exhaustive tasting of test blends during assemblage determines how much ”if any” merlot, petit verdot, or cabernet franc will be included in the finished wine. Almost every vintage (an unbroken chain from `62 on) has something substantive to recommend it. Every decade has its high points. Taste and opinions differ. But the just-concluded decade of the nineties has been outstanding. Generalization does a disservice to the individual wines. There's structure, there's complexity, there's balance. And they develop for a long, long time.

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Ridge Monte Bello 2006 750ml

Case of 6

More Vintages:

Winery

Ridge

Varietal

Cabernet Sauvignon

Country

United States

Region

California

Appellation

Santa Cruz County

Wine Advocate

Jeb Dunnuck

James Suckling

Wine Spectator

Winery Notes

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