Served this with dinner as a gift to some friends that were celebrating their anniversary from the same year. Went great with 35 day dry-aged NY strips.
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1981 Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - USA, California, Napa Valley (11/7/2009)
Bottle was in near perfect shape. Corked crumbled a bit on extraction and the wine with quickly decanted to avoid the sediment and little cork bits. The color didn’t show nearly as much age as I was expecting and there was only a very tiny amount of bricking at the extreme edge. Nice fruit on the nose with a touch of old leather. The wine was vibrant and alive and gave no sign of fading at all during the evening. This was a very good bottle. 92 pts. (92 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
On a side note, it’s interesting to look at the history of scores on this wine. WS initially gave it 94 points in 1986 and then 5 years later they gave it 85. Parker tasted it once about 20 years ago and slammed it with 79 points. Sorta makes you wonder about the value of professional reviews, especially for these older wines.