Ridge Ranks #27 in Drinks International’s “World’s Most Admired Wine Brands 2022”

Drinks International

April 2022

Five decades ago, Paul Draper concluded that, “a winery cannot have an international reputation without international distribution.” The long road toward establishing Ridge’s credentials in all of the great wine capitals of the world began in 1973 with our first export shipment to the UK. Today Ridge is found in more than 50 countries around the globe, and on the wine lists of the world’s best restaurants. The acknowledgment of these decades of work was reaffirmed when Ridge Vineyards was named the 27th most admired wine brand in the world by Drinks International on April 1, 2022.

For the last 12 years, Drinks International has released its list of brands deemed the “World’s Most Admired,” which is voted on by the Drinks International Academy of leading wine buyers, sommeliers, wholesalers, bar owners, Masters of Wine, writers and educators from six continents around the world. It also named Ridge Vineyards as the “most admired wine brand in North America” for the second year in a row. This was Ridge Vineyard’s 11th consecutive year on the list.

Ridge has long been revered on the international wine stage. This recognition comes on the heels of being awarded “Best Fine Wine Producer in the Americas” at The Golden Vines in London last October. Also, according to an annual survey by Wine Services at the end of 2021, Ridge is the second most listed California wine in top restaurants globally.

Now in its 60^th year, Ridge has championed single-vineyard winemaking, searching California for those rare vineyards where climate, soil, and varietal are ideally matched. Ridge Vineyards is the largest grower of organically certified grapes in Sonoma County and in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation with 379 total certified acres. All of Ridge’s vineyards in Sonoma County and Santa Cruz Mountains are Certified Sustainable by Fish Friendly Farming.

Ridge has consistently ranked on the “World’s Most Admired” wine brands in part because of its steadfast commitment to pre-industrial winemaking, a belief that for anyone attempting to make fine wine, modern additives, and industrial processing limit true quality. The philosophy comes from the techniques used in the finest 19th-century California wineries and Bordeaux chateaux. Read the full announcement here.