Ridge Vineyards

The weekend before I started at Merryvale, Marc and I headed down to Ridge in Cupertino. It was one of the last wineries in the Santa Cruz mountains area that I wanted to get to before I moved up to Napa. It was also the last of the 3 R's known for their Zinfandels, accompanying Rosenblum and Ravenswood.

The Santa Cruz mountains are beautiful, but the wineries up there feel like they take forever to get to due to all those steep hair-pin turns. It was a lazy day, so by the time we got down there, the tasting room was only open for another hour or so. The view was beautiful, but the tasting experience was lackluster. Either our pourer was not too knowledgeable about the wines or she was just anxious to get out of there. She was a lot less talkative than most tasting room employees I've encountered. However, she did waive the $5 tasting fee for us. I wasn't impressed with Ridge so much as to buy a whole bottle, and it didn't look like I was getting a discount, but we settled on a 375 ml bottle of 2004 Lytton Spring Zinfandel (79% with 18% Petite Syrah and 3% Carignane). It's still in the bottle, in my overflowing wine rack. A review will come whenever the cork gets popped.

Grapes on the vine

View of the South Bay


Marc enjoying the view


Picnic benches outside of the Ridge tasting room