Ridge Vineyards is one of the most quietly influential wineries in America: the house that proved California could age with the best of Bordeaux, and then spent decades saving the state's oldest, most characterful vines from being torn up. This is a full guide to Ridge and the range we stock at House of Decant.

Founded in 1962 high in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ridge made its name with Monte Bello, a Cabernet that famously placed among the top wines in the 1976 Judgement of Paris and, in a re-run thirty years later, came first outright. Under the long stewardship of winemaker Paul Draper, it became a byword for a particular idea: minimal intervention, old vines, and wines that taste of a place rather than a recipe.

The Old-Vine Champion

Ridge's other great contribution is its devotion to Zinfandel, and to the ancient, mixed-up field blends of old California. Vineyards like Geyserville and Lytton Springs, planted a century or more ago with Zinfandel woven through Petite Sirah, Carignan and Alicante Bouschet, were exactly the sort of gnarled old plots the industry wanted to grub up for something more fashionable. Ridge championed them instead, and made them famous.

The Range We Stock

We carry two of Ridge's flagship field blends. Geyserville, from century-old vines in Alexander Valley, is all brambly black fruit, pepper and spice, generous but structured. Lytton Springs, from a single Dry Creek vineyard, is a touch darker and more brooding, woven through with Petite Sirah's grip. Both wear Ridge's famously honest, ingredient-style back labels, listing exactly what went into the bottle and where it came from. The estate's Rhone-inspired Grenache Blanc rounds out the range.

What It Tastes Like

These are big, warm, sun-filled California reds, but never jammy or heavy, because Ridge picks for freshness and ages in the American oak barrels it makes itself. Expect blackberry, black cherry and plum, wrapped in black pepper, sweet spice and a savoury, almost meaty depth. They are exuberant young and age gracefully for a decade or more, gaining leather and dried fruit.

How to Drink It

Decant a young Geyserville or Lytton Springs an hour ahead and pour it with something generous: barbecue, a rib of beef, a rich mushroom ragu. Serve it at cool room temperature, not warm, to keep all that ripe fruit fresh. These are wines for a table full of people and a plate full of flavour.

Ridge is one of the New World's great names. For big reds in general see our guide to full-bodied red wine, and for another New World icon we stock, read our profile of Penfolds.

Ridge has never chased trends, which is precisely why it has outlasted so many of them. It bet on great old vineyards and honest winemaking half a century ago, and the wines have been proving it right, quietly and deliciously, ever since.