1997 Cabernet Sauvignon To Kalon Vineyard

Mondavi's huge new winemaking facility for its growing program of reserve and district-designated wines will be finished in time for the 2000 vintage. The wines will be fermented in 56 new 5,000-gallon Taransaud oak tanks, and Mondavi will switch to gentler basket pressing, as at Opus One. On my recent visit, I focused on the bright '98 whites, picked on the early side with sound acids, and the ripe, pliant, very smooth '97 reds. Mondavi's great 450-acre To-Kalon Vineyard fared relatively well in the difficult 1998 vintage, even if the wines made from this year cannot match the '97s for sheer size and generosity of flavor.

The Mondavi winery was in the process of changing its director of winemaking during the '97 harvest, and, according to several Mondavi execs, the inmates were running the asylum at the time. From my early tastings of the '97s, they have done well. Mondavi cabernet-based wines, especially those entirely or largely from the great To-Kalon Vineyard, continue to the be standouts here, but the uncompromisingly dry and serious white wines are better balanced than ever before for development in bottle (no doubt the growing percentage of natural yeasts plays a role). This strikes me as a rather daring strategy, considering that many wine neophytes instinctively gravitate toward the Mondavi name on restaurant wine lists. But then the Mondavi operation has traditionally been ahead of the curve. The '97 chardonnays, including the Reserve, were all bottled before the '98 harvest to retain freshness and verve.