Welcome to Paradise...Ridge

Yesterday, took a cruise up Fountaingrove to one of the most scenic wineries in Sonoma County.  One the narrow road, you see piece after piece of wildly inventive creation.  Once in the parking lot, taking pictures of course, I looked up at the hills, out and down at the vineyards below.

Into the tasting Room, where I met my new friend, Ruthanne.  The floor around me, spacious, mystically chic, perfect for events, which I later learned continue quite commonplace at Paradise.  Ruthanne poured everything from the ’09 Estate Sauv Blanc to the infamously delicious Convict Zin, 2007, just as moving and wooingly forceful in its nuances as I recall, beautiful.  The star, for me, and this probably won’t surprise a lot of you, was the 2008 Russian River Pinot.  The other star, ’06 Elevation Cab, which brought with it 7% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot.  May have had another vintage of this the last time I visited, but I can’t be sure.  Went out on the patio for a bit, just to welcome gentler Santa Rosa air into my nucleus.  Loved the removed feel of this winery, the narrow road taking one to the Room.  And the wines, dauntingly multidimensional, romantic, like the surrounding sculptures.  Artistic, otherworldly, phantom-like.  Lovely.  What other praiseful modifiers can I insert?  Standing by my favorite, the Pinot.  Sipping it right now, in fact.  Its notes are like those melodic, musically knotted.  Going to revisit in April, when their “Wines and Sunsets” starts up again.  Anything to be back out on the patio, cuddling with that air above the vines. 

One last note, the winery’s name, it containing “Paradise.” This is not a boast, it’s an acute survey of the property.  All about it, paradisiacal.  This is yet another Sonoma County pond of pleasure for a writer.  Photographers, just the same.  That’s what a wine paradise, like the Ridge, will do to you, whether artist or other.  See you in Paradise.  Sip, sip ...