03 Apr Ridge Winery Lytton Springs Geyserville CA

At Pat The Wine Guy, one of our mantras is “wine you can find”.

 We’ll always focus on wines that are available where you shop.

Thus, during our “PTWG Spring Break Northern California Winery Tour” (that’s a t-shirt just waiting to be printed),  we visited wineries that make wine you can find in the Portland-metro area.

Our final tour stop, Ridge, was a slight exception.

Ridge wines aren’t on every shelf around town.

Those that are might be slightly above our $15-$30 sweet spot.

We stopped at Ridge anyway. And we’re glad we did.

Timing is everything and our timing was good.

Perfect Sonoma County spring weather.   Bud break in the vineyards.

Laid-back attitude in the tasting room and on the tour.

It was a great afternoon.

At Ridge, they say they “rely on nature and tradition rather than technology”.  It did seem like some of their methods are old school.  Check out the barrels.  Other wineries track each barrel with bar codes and sophisticated data bases.

At Ridge, they slap on a piece of duct tape, then scribble on a reference number with a Sharpie.

Hey, whatever works. And it’s been working for Ridge since the 60’s.

Ridge specializes in cabernet, zinfandel and blends of each. (Their Three Valleys blend is in many groceries around Portland. We’ll review in a future PTWG post.)

Their wines are rich, sturdy and distinctive.

I’ve always been a fan of Ridge wines.

And after our stop at their Lytton Springs branch, now I’m a fan of Ridge wineries.