Russian Ridge Winery

Hours: Year Round

Russian Ridge is a small family owned winery producing less than 1,000 cases of wine annually. We were located at the West end of Alameda in California. We moved to 1001 Washington St. San Carlos for 2 vintages and now are located at 919 Washington St. San Carlos, just around the corner from our last location. All of our fruit is sourced from single vineyards from our Paso Robles Petit Sarah to our Berry Lane Chardonnay and Lower Chiles Valley Pinot Grigio from Napa Valley. Our Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon are from Santa Cruz Mountains fruit. Merlot and Petit Verdot and Malbec are from southern Santa Clara County. The vineyards share common night environments where the cool ocean breezes extend inland to cool the fruit at the end of a warm day. Our wines are made in small lots of 40 to 200 cases.
We like to cold soak all our fruit upon arrival to our winery. We cold soak on the skins for 48 hours at temperatures in the 40/50 ²s in a cold room. We then bring out the half ton open top fermenters to the fermentation/ barrel room. After 24 hours to warm up, we pitch the yeasts. We try to punch down the cap four times a day for as long as the fermentation lasts. We clean the must of the remaining MOG (Material Other then Grape) left over from stemming and crushing during these punch downs. Some tannins can be obtained from the small remaining stems. I feel that early removal of these stems helps to eliminate to many tannins from being dissolved by the higher alcohol levels latter in the fermentation. We try to produce wines that are well balanced and pleasant to drink. Dark colors and rich fruit in our red wines. Balanced and refreshing tropical fruits in our whites. Since all our wines are from single vineyards what you should expect to see vintage to vintage is the variance of the environment on the vineyard. We truly hope you enjoy our wines as much as we enjoy crafting and drinking them.