1999 Chardonnay Napa Valley

"Today, a less sophisticated form of winemaking is what honored in California," Tim Mondavi told me in early March. "What we need is to balance the fruit to the site, and the winemaking to the fruit. I think we're just a little farther along the path toward honoring the site." Mondavi is intentionally crafting wines that can be consumed with dinner, as opposed to high-alcohol, heavily oaked monsters that are more appropriate as meal substitutes. Last summer the Mondavis installed 52 new Taransaud fermenters for their reserve program; a taste comparison between wine done in these vessels and the same juice vinified in stainless steel showed an altogether more sophisticated, mellow texture in the cask-fermented lots. In my extensive tasting of current and upcoming Mondavi wines, I found many of the 1998 reds a bit green and thin, but the 1999s offer a lovely combination of density of flavor and restraint.