Ridge Happens.

Stefan popped the cork on a miraculous 1969 Ridge Geyserville yesterday...inspiration ensued.

Stefan: I pulled this out of my cellar on a complete whim yesterday (it was tucked nicely next to a 72 and 73 Geyserville) after a dissapointing showing from a 1974 Ridge Fiddletown (Amador County). Well, I don't know what to say, I was just stunned. I KNOW Ridge Geyserville can age, I mean, I've had the 1972 and it is still kicking. In fact the '72 is more like a fully mature Bordeaux. But this...this....this '69 was ethereal...like a 50 year old Grand Cru Burg....just sublime and elegant and wonderfully complex, gliding across the palate like silk.

The aroma was the showstopper....citrus rind, tea, light soy sauce, orange pekoe, cinnamon, burnt sugar...just one of those wines that you can just smell all day. Very sort of brown/orange in color, but still generally very healthy. After about 45 minutes it had had enough and "gave up" but what a treat. Life is good on a Thursday afternoon at BPWine.

Brendan: “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!” I felt like proclaiming as soon as this wine came within inches of me and my nose. The color alone had me smiling from ear to ear (the pictures do it no justice). It was awe-inspiring; radiant orange/red in the core flowing into a magnificent yellow at the fringe. Like sunset in a wine glass. Upon smelling, my olfactory system was happily greeted by a gleeful group of beautiful aromas. Orange pekoe tea, earth, cigarette tobacco, ash, asian spice, flowers, gunpowder, brown sugar, beach grass and many more members of this vibrant troupe all sang and danced their way across my senses.

The taste was a sweet and succulent blend of juicy tangerine and raspberry followed by flavors of smoked meat, fruit leather, and spicy earth. It was like a great book that I hoped would never end, except that I couldn’t stop turning the damn pages to see what would happen next. I swear the taste stayed with me for minutes. And as I lay in bed last night, watching “What About Bob?”, the familiar mantra in that movie brought me back to the afternoon, that ’69 Ridge, and its soiree with my senses; “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.”