But the time has come to break my silence. I was rushing home from work the other night when I remembered that my house was dry. That's right. We had no wine at home. God forbid. What was I going to do? Both local wine stores were blocks away - in different directions - and I just wanted to get home and crash. It was one of those days. So I stopped at the local liquor store, which is really saying something.
Our local liquor store is one of those old school places where you walk into a booth and the guy behind the three inch glass passes you a fifth of cheap bourbon. The wine list is less than robust, to put it mildly, and when I take the time to actually peruse what's held out as wine behind that huge plane of glass, the proprietor looks at me like I'm a weirdo. I do not venture in here often or for very long, and on the night in question, I actually thought I might get robbed on the way out. But this is the price you pay to obtain a bottle of wine when it's late and you're on your way home in Brooklyn.
I asked if they had any Ridge. What? he said. Ridge Vineyards? No, we don't have that, he said. Ok, I said. I looked back at the shelves of wine behind the three inch plane of glass. Nothing. There was nothing that interested me. And then I saw it. Robert Mondavi. Hmm. Robert Mondavi. Did I dare? I hadn't had a bottle of Mondavi in a long time. Since well before the company was sold to Constellation. But there was nothing else. It was the most expensive bottle of wine he had. It cost $24. I dared.
2004 Napa Valley Merlot **+ Thoroughly enjoyable. As you may guess, I had very low expectations of this wine, but the fruit is ripe, and the wine is forward but not sweet, it has good balance and good grip. Mondavi's website states the wine is made from 100% Napa Valley fruit and sees 20% new French oak. The oak note was a little overwhelming, but otherwise this was a good quality wine, and if you can get it at under $20, it's a good value. It's just too bad that too many producers who make wine for more than double or triple this amount don't have as quality a product.
2005 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ** The merlot was so good I went back and bought a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon. This was mildly green and herbaceous. From a notoriously wet spring (which I experienced first hand) through a long mild fall, the many 2005 Napa cabernets I have tasted are all over the place quality-wise. This is 100% Napa cabernet, "47% from the Oakville AVA, with the majority of that (43%) from Robert Mondavi Winery’s To Kalon Vineyard." The wine saw 14 months of aging in 20% new French oak. This opened up very nicely after a few hours, but never really showed the complexity and big fruit of the 2004 Merlot.
Lastly, I'd like to mention the 1997 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (***) which I retasted when Robert Mondavi passed away. The 1997 Napa Valley Cabernet is a stunning wine. Dusty ripe raspberry flavors emerge at first, but on the palate this is not a fruity wine at all. It is woodsy and has complex notes of rawhide and cigar smoke.
This was one of the first bottles of wine I ever put down to age, and that was against the advice of people at the time who said Napa cabernets did not age well. I've never really understood why many critics say California wine should not be cellared. It's a position I whole-heartedly disagree with, and it's something I mentioned to Carissa Mondavi (Timothy Mondavi's daughter) at the California Wine Experience in NYC a few weeks ago. She's working at Continuum now, which I look forward to tasting again in many, many years ....
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