Ridge

Ridge Vineyards is California's great traditionalist. High in the Santa Cruz Mountains, its Monte Bello Cabernet has been made in essentially the same patient, low-intervention way for six decades — a wine that stood in the 1976 Judgment of Paris and then won the thirtieth-anniversary rematch outright. Under the long stewardship of Paul Draper, Ridge championed what it calls pre-industrial winemaking: native yeasts, neutral American oak, and ingredient labels decades before transparency was fashionable. Its second pillar is old-vine Zinfandel — the Lytton Springs and Geyserville field blends that remain the definitive expressions of California's own grape.