back in the olden days of the early 90s, i, skorloff, bought and sold beer and wine for the local grocery monopoly. i knew the world about beer and knew how to sell it profitably. it took a lot of selflessness and practice to learn about wine. selflessness and money.

ridge vineyards specializes in old-vine, single vineyard wines made with exacting traditional methods typical of the pre-Prohibition era. they mostly produce zinfandel but their most famous wine (and most expensive) is their monte bello. they have a special lineup of small lot (5-50 barrel) wines available only by subscription; 5-50 barrels is 110-1100 cases (less than a three-day supply for neverland ranch summer camp). those wines are branded ATP, for Advanced Tasting Program. every now and then, distributors would get a case or two of ATP and twice my store was lucky enough to have access to a few bottles. the first time was a mataro (also known as mourvedre). mataro/mourvedre is almost never available by itself, it's typically used sparingly to add earthiness and complexity to simpler, fruitier varietals; it's also mostly used in field blends, wines where more than one grape is grown in a single vineyard. my second ATP was a non-vintage cabernet. it was non-vintage because it was a blend of rustic cabs from 1981 and 1982 - basically it was superb, powerful, twelve-year old cabernet. from that time i was hooked. unfortunately, i couldn't get any more ATPs from the distributor and i couldn't subscribe because the texas alcohol laws at the time made shipping from out-of-state impossible.

fast forward eleven years and a law change. a new ridge is on my doorstep every month (two bottles at a time).

their packaging has the most amazing typography. if you're a fan of engraver fonts, you've found your wine. their corks are smooth and fleshy and stamped with the word "ridge" and the vintage year. besides all that, they are total geeks about documentation. this is the text from card they sent with their april shipment:

pretty coo, huh? "vivid bing cherry finish?" they should have called it "vivid BLING cherry finish" because it friggin' sparkled.

now take a look at the info on the wine label itself:

so, enough about their packaging. how's the juice? always intense. always. basically, i do not have a sense of smell ("so, if skorloff can't smell, why does skorloff like wine?" because it tastes good.), but i can sense their wines. really. most of their varietals tend towards dense and inky. some might describe them as hedonistic fruit bombs, i think that's good thing.

UPDATED: carignane is typically found in rhone wines (then again, it seems that few varietals aren't).