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Old vines pass test of time

The boss at Ridge Vineyards in California says count on age-old vines, not just right climes, to produce the best wines.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published April 19, 2006

Wasn't the winery started by a bunch of Stanford scientists in the bow-tie 1950s? And those stern plain-white labels look like a geologist's lab report, all percentages and strange place names.

The hypothesis goes poof when you taste what may be California's best red wine, smooth, sensuous and perfectly balanced. Or you talk to Paul Draper, the man who presides over Ridge and is still very much a philosophy major. And a writer, traveler, architect and dog lover.

While Ridge's founders were research scientists, they bought their first vineyard, a mountain plot in Santa Clara first planted in the 1890s, because they liked good food and wine made the old-fashioned way. They made their first wine at home.

Which may be why they hired Draper, a philosophy graduate who followed his love of wine to Chile in the 1960s - and why he stayed at Ridge. "I knew what great Bordeaux tasted like. That's what we wanted to do in Chile. When I tasted their '62 and '64, there wasn't anything else in California like it.''

The reason was Monte Bello, north of cool Santa Cruz, where cabernet sauvignon grapes grew for 100 years. Although Ridge and Draper are known for zinfandel, that historic cabernet started Ridge and led it to zinfandel and the evolution of Draper's philosophy.

In almost 40 years there, Draper and his wines have won countless awards. Next month he is up for a James Beard award as outstanding wine and spirits professional and next week he'll be guest of honor at Bern's wine festival.

In Draper's Midwestern family wine was for special occasions, but at the home of a Swiss friend from college, wine was poured every day for lunch and dinner. He was hooked on the romance.

"We have so few rituals left,'' he said. "Having wine at a meal ritualizes the moment, makes the whole day special.''

Wine's long history led Draper and Ridge to value place and become advocates of what the French call terroir and pioneers of single-vineyard designations. At California universities, however, students were taught that climate was all important: Heat, water, the right grapes and clever work in the winery could make good wine.

Not so for Ridge. Dirt and grapes have to prove themselves over time, a long time. When the founders needed money to support their cabernet habit, they bought and bottled zinfandel from 100-year-old vines at the bottom of their mountain.

That convinced them. They had lucked into old cabernet territory on Monte Bello but there weren't many others like it in California in 1970. Yet the state did have grand old patches of zinfandel planted by Italian immigrants a century before so Ridge started hunting them out.

The first was in Geyserville in Sonoma, then Draper found Lytton Springs nearby, later York Creek, Paso Robles, Howell Mountain and many more.

"I counted up the other day. I think I have made at least 50 zinfandels from different vineyard sites since I've been here.''

Age always intrigued him. He regards 30-year-old vines as middle-aged at best and prefers vineyards 60, 80, 100 years old.

While many wineries like old vines, Draper sees them as endorsed by the soil and the owners' sweat. "These vineyards survived Prohibition and the Depression, when you barely survived, sending grapes into San Francisco for home winemakers. A lot of vineyards were torn out and people planted prune trees, French plums. Those that survived are the ones people cared for too much to rip out.''

Draper now has 10 of them for zinfandel and Monte Bello for cabernet. To allow the identity of each vineyard to show, the winemaking is gentle but not hands-off.

"We make dozens of decisions with each wine,'' he said. "When to pick the grapes, when to rack a barrel, when to stop fermentation, what to blend, but we make each decision on taste.''

Draper the romantic does appreciate science and design. His latest project is the winery and visitors center in Lytton Springs built of bales of rice straw. He put solar cells on the roof that cut electric costs 70 percent.

Natural insulation helps his beloved Samoyeds, like Bodhi for Bodhisattva, a Buddhist term for enlightened being, a big white sled dog somehow at home in the sunny summer vineyards. "There are two things going on I think. They have double coats of fur and hair. It's tremendous insulation. There is their whiteness, the sun reflects off it.''

Could be a natural appreciation for terroir.

Chris Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 08:06:36]