1998 Syrah Saralee'S Vineyard Russian River Valley

Robert Mondavi bought out Arrowood business last year, but Richard Arrowood still owns the winery and surrounding vineyards and the Arrowood label. (Mondavi has options to purchase the real estate and the label after five and ten years, respectively.) Arrowood remains in charge of the operation. "Basically, the Mondavis have had little impact on winemaking, except to ask �Can we help you do anything better?�" Arrowood told me at the end of February. Arrowood considers the 1999 vintage "as good as '95-a cool, long growing season that featured a lot of hang time and an extended harvest." With more thorough flavor development, he added, there's more fruit to balance the alcohol than in the typical year in California.

Dick Arrowood was excited about his '99 crop of wines, made from fruit harvested into the middle of November. He describes them as "worthy successors to the '94s, wines of great intensity and concentration but moderate alcohol levels. The whites," he adds, "are racier in '99 than in '94." Nineteen ninety-eight was a cooler, more difficult growing season, one that Arrowood, like a number of his colleagues, compares to 1993. My early survey of Arrowood's '98 cabernet, merlot and malbec turned up a set of wines without quite the middle-palate ripeness to support their tannins; I preferred both the merlot and the malbec to the cabernet, which came across as particularly green. Arrowood tends to blend and bottle his wines late; in fact, a few of the '97s were not yet in bottle at the time of my visit in early March.