Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon 1997

Duty Paid

£365.00

Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon 1997

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Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon 1997

HED7869

75 cl

12.9%

£365.00

Taxes included.

Pay ex-VAT when shipping outside the UK

Wine Storage

Storing with Hedonism Wines

Secure, Professional Storage for Your Fine Wines

Hedonism Wines is pleased to offer bonded storage to our clients, providing a secure, fully insured, and professionally managed facility for en primeur and under-bond purchases. Our storage service ensures that your fine wines are kept in optimal conditions until you are ready to enjoy them.

Why Choose Bonded Storage with Hedonism Wines?

Your wines will be stored at our bonded storage facility, a highly regarded bonded warehouse in Essex, just outside London. With over a decade of experience handling and storing fine wines and spirits, our facility maintains strict temperature and humidity controls to ensure your collection is preserved at its best.

Key benefits include:

One year of free storage when you start storing at Hedonism Wines.
Competitive storage rates: £15 per 12-bottle case per year, £7.50 per 6-bottle case per year, equivalent to £1.25 per standard bottle. Alternative formats will be charged accordingly.
Full insurance coverage for loss or breakage.
Quick and efficient delivery: Wines can be cleared and delivered within the UK in 3-4 working days.
Quarterly invoicing for storage fees to keep the process simple and transparent.
Easily manage your stored wines online, request condition reports, and track your collection effortlessly.
Flexibility to store wines purchased elsewhere, subject to our approval.

Storage Pricing

Below is a summary of our bonded storage costs:

Service	Cost
Inbounding fee	Free
Withdrawal fee	Free
Storage and insurance (12-bottle case)	£15 per year
Storage and insurance (6-bottle case)	£7.50 per year

Duty Charges

Below is a summary of the new duty charges per bottle as of February 2026. Please note that these vary depending on the ABV and are subject to change. Please get in touch if you require more information:

Product	Duty charge
Wine 12.5% ABV	£2.87 per 75cl bottle
Wine 13.5% ABV	£3.10 per 75cl bottle
Wine 14.5% ABV	£3.33 per 75cl bottle
Spirits 45% ABV	£11.47 per 70cl bottle

Transparent Billing and Rate Calculations

Annual Billing: Clients are invoiced annually based on the wines stored in the preceding year.
Case Equivalents: A case is defined as 9 litres of wine (typically twelve 750ml bottles), ensuring clarity in pricing.
Pro-Rata Charges: Storage fees are charged on a per-bottle basis, and wines stored for part of a month will be billed accordingly.

How to Use Our Bonded Storage

Purchase en primeur or under-bond wines from Hedonism Wines.
Automatically enjoy twelve months of free storage at our bonded storage when you open your storage account.
After twelve months, your storage will continue at the rates outlined above, with quarterly invoicing.
When you are ready to receive your wines, simply request delivery. Most orders are fulfilled within 3-4 working days.

With Hedonism Wines' bonded storage, you can buy with confidence, knowing your wines are in safe hands until you are ready to enjoy them. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our storage service, please contact our team.

Out of Stock

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For longer than six decades, Ridge has been recognised as one of the most significant producers of consistently high-quality wines in California. The Monte Bello Cabernet comes from their oldest Santa Cruz Mountains vineyards and is undoubtedly the flagship wine. 1997 saw warm temperatures and abundant yields, producing a supple, seductive and elegant Monte Bello. Composed of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot and 3% Cabernet Franc, this is a generous wine with delicious notes of cassis, woody spices, dried herbs, cigar smoke and earth. With signature freshness and sweetness of tannin, this is perfect for drinking now but may well last a few more years yet.

1997

Red

Santa Cruz Mountains

Ridge

California, United States

Cabernet Sauvignon

94 Robert Parker

The product of a generous crop and a balmy vintage, the 1997 Monte Bello continues to show beautifully, wafting from the glass with an expressive bouquet of cassis, dried cherries, menthol and loamy soil, lavishly framed by new American oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, supple and open-knit, with largely melted tannins and a generous personality, which is all tied together by the bright thread of acidity that's such a signature of this site. Despite being seemingly fully mature, an open bottle held up beautifully over three days. Even after extensive crop thinning, yields in 1997 were around two tons per acre—high by this bottling's modest standards—and the blend was 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot and 3% Cabernet Franc, attaining 12.9% natural alcohol. — William Kelley, 31st May 2018

92 Vinous

(12.9% alcohol; aged for 18 months in new American oak; a 45% selection for the estate's grand vin): Bright, dark red-ruby. Sexy, lifted aromas of cassis, redcurrant, licorice, tree bark, mint and roasted herbs. Intensely flavored and surprisingly firm and energetic, with sweet plum, currant, tobacco and earth flavors lingering through a persistent finish. Tannins are firm and dusty but fine-grained. There's nothing at all over the top about this midweight, focused, juicy wine. Was it fleshier five years ago? In any event, it's still juicy and lively today. — Stephen Tanzer, 1st September 2017

18 Jancis Robinson

85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 3% Cabernet Franc. 172 tons from 83.5 acres. Torrential winter rains were followed by a long, mild spring, early flowering and unusually large yields – they dropped nearly 20% of the crop, bringing yields down to two tons per acre. Earliest vintage since 1962. Indigenous-yeast primary fermentation and malolactic conversion of each vineyard section separately. 18 months in barrel (90% new air-dried American oak, 10% new French oak). Magnum.Very deep blackish garnet. Saline edge on massive ripeness. Dry finish and really sappy. Beautifully balanced. Still some acidity. (JR) — Jancis Robinson, 25th October 2022

Ridge

Mountain Wines of Distinction

Named after the historic vineyard area of Monte Bello Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains has been a byword for fine Californian wine since the early 1960s. Ridge shot to fame in the fabled 1976 Judgement of Paris. It was at this groundbreaking blind tasting that the 1971 Ridge Monte Bello was pitted against some of the most revered First Growths of Bordeaux. It placed fifth. (NB: in a re-enactment of the same tasting held in 2006, Monte Bello 1971 placed first.)

Under legendary winemaker Paul Draper, Ridge Vineyards became renowned for the exceptional quality of its single-vineyard wines. Though Draper has now retired, the estate continues to produce terroir-focused wines with the same commitment to organic farming and traditional winemaking techniques. From the fine Bordeaux blends and Chardonnays of Monte Bello to the Zinfandels of Lytton Springs and Geyserville in Sonoma, and all points in between, Ridge Vineyards remains one of the most celebrated names in California wine.

California, United States

Ridge