The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Photograph by Brian Connelly

Paul Draper inspects the budding grapes June 20 in the vineyard at Ridge Winery in Cupertino.

Grape Expectations

Cupertino winery uncorks a winner at international tasting

By HUGH BIGGAR

California wines are having a vintage year with the help of a Cupertino winery that has its roots in old-school wine growing.

On May 24, Cupertino's Ridge Vineyards' 1971 Monte Bello Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon placed first at a prestigious tasting of the best wines from California and from France, helping affirm California's reputation as a home of world-class wines.

Thirty years ago, European wines generally ranked as the best in the world. A tasting on May 24, 1976, however, shocked the world--well, the wine world, at any rate.

At that tasting, California wines placed first through fifth (then, the 1971 Monte Bello finished fifth), besting wines from the premier French wine region, Bordeaux. That 1976 tasting elevated California wine to world-class status among connoisseurs.

After California's surprise top rankings in the 1976 event, French vintners attributed the state's success to young wines. The French believed aging would once again breathe new life into French wines, restoring their traditional spot at the top.

The 1971 Monte Bello from Ridge Vineyards, however, proved them wrong once again. The winery's CEO, Paul Draper, credits this achievement to the winery's unique location and emphasis on naturally produced wines at a time when most are produced in laboratories by larger growers.

"The entire Montebello Ridge is fractured limestone," Draper says of the winery's location in the Santa Cruz Mountains. "The limestone makes the best subsoil, which gives the wine a stony character."

"The altitude [2,600 feet] and the proximity to the ocean with cold nights also makes a big difference," Draper says, providing a vintner's description of vineyards that are terraced along lion-colored hills. On one side of the winery there is a view of the Santa Clara Valley to the East Bay hills. On clear days, a ridge at the top of the winery also provides views of the Pacific Ocean.

This spot is a long way from France, but for those such as Draper who dig deeper, there are parallels.

"The limestone subsoil and the climate is much like Bordeaux's," Draper says, while the Napa Valley is much warmer and has no limestone.

Draper first noticed similarities to Bordeaux when he came to Ridge Vineyards to interview for the job.

"When I first joined Ridge, I tasted the wines the guys had made and realized the '62 or '64 vintage was as good as very fine Bordeaux," he says. Such similar tastes convinced Draper to take a position as Ridge Vineyards' wine master in 1969.

After taking the job, Draper decided to give the wine its own character and not have it become simply faux Bordeaux.

"I didn't want to imitate [the Bordeaux wines] by using French oak barrels, so I used American white oak to give it nuance," he says. He also had the barrels lightly burned, rather than charred as was the usual practice, to enhance the wine's flavor.

Draper, a self-taught vintner, also decided to continue the natural growing tradition along Montebello Ridge at a time when the wine industry increasingly employed oenologists trained by agricultural schools and in laboratories.

"In the Old World, there was no mention of being a winemaker," he says, adding he prefers the word winegrower or vintner. "But in the New World, the idea is we are creating wines."

At Montebello, thanks to its founder, Draper found a place still practicing the old world, European tradition.

Osea Perrone, a San Francisco doctor, established the winery in 1885 at a time when wine-growing in the Santa Cruz Mountains flourished. Originally from Carrara, Italy, a region known for its marble and wine, Perrone realized the similar landscape and climate of warm days and cold nights at Montebello Ridge would also produce good wines. Six years later, the minimum time for a new winery, Perrone produced his first bottled wine, using a mule to work the crush and gravity to send it down to barrels. The crush still stands, just above the Ridge Vineyard offices.

"This whole area was grapevines and wineries," Mary Lou Lyon, a local historian, says of the late 19th century.

According to Lyon, these early winegrowers, apparently including several retired ship captains from Maine, replanted the area with French wine grapes grafted onto native stock, and with prunes and apricots.

However, these early wineries, including Perrone's, subsequently went through hard times.

In the early 1900s, the area experienced an epidemic of phylloxera. It killed off most of the grapes and destroyed 75 percent of local vineyards.

Later, the federal government added its own hurdles in the 1920s. Prohibition outlawed alcohol and liquor from 1929 to 1933. Although it was repealed in 1933, the dry spell sent local wineries into a period of decline.

In 1959, three scientists from Stanford University searching for a country retreat bought a derelict vineyard just below Perrone's original property. On a whim, they grew small quantities of grapes, producing small quantities of wine, and eventually acquired neighboring vineyards, including Perrone's. (Today, the Ridge Vineyard includes 99 acres of red grape vineyard and 100 acres that are not planted.)

It was the wine grown by the Stanford scientists that Draper first sampled, and that convinced him to stay and hone techniques he had learned on the job at a winery he co-founded in Chile in the 1960s.

With the political and economic situation deteriorating in Chile, Draper began looking elsewhere for winery work.

The move to Ridge Vineyards also allowed him to further pursue the craft of naturally growing wines, a craft that contributed to the 1971's recent triumph.

"Wine-growing is choosing the most intense flavors and not imposing our ideas on the wines," Draper says, noting some Napa wines are blended from four or five different vineyards.

If Draper--a philosophy graduate of Stanford University--had a personal wine philosophy, it would be along the lines of allowing the grapes to grow and then bringing it into wine.

As a part of that natural process, Ridge Vineyards uses natural yeast to ferment the wine, reduces acidity by allowing a second fermentation and uses no processing except rough filtration.

"Today, most decent wines add acidity and tannins," Draper says of commercial growers that use technology to enhance a wine's flavor.

Not that Draper is complaining.

For one, the unique qualities at Ridge Vineyards helped place the 1971 Monte Bello first at the May tasting, the wine equivalent of a World Cup or Oscar triumph. Draper describes the 1971's flavor as elegant, balanced and with a taste of black fruit and currant.

Even so, Draper remains modest and recognizes such wine may not be for everyone.

"The worst thing winegrowers can do is be elitist," he says. "Technology has a place for producing better wines at reasonable prices and is a good way of introducing people to wine."

After all, he says, "What wine is really all about is what you like."

Ridge Vineyards, 17100 Montebello Road, has free tastings on Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Locally, Ridge Vineyards' wine is available at Uncorked in Saratoga, Whole Foods Markets and Drager's Market in Los Altos. For more information visit www.ridgewine.com or call 408.867.3233.

The Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association sponsors a summer program that allows individuals to tour 30 wineries, including Ridge Vineyards, July 15. For $30, individuals receive a passport to the wineries, some of which are not regularly open to the public. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, including ordering a wine passport, visit www.scmwa.com.