1994 Robert Mondavi Carneros Pinot Noir

The Robert Mondavi Winery is the best known winery in California, and with good reason. The late Robert Mondavi, who died in 2008, was Napa Valley’s most passionate ambassador and the maker of some of the valley’s very best wines. His Italian immigrant parents moved from Minnesota to Napa Valley to grow fruit, and by the 1960s they owned and operated the Charles Krug Winery. But after a feud with his brother and mother in 1966, when Robert was already in his 50s, Robert left the Krug winery and struck out on his own. He was determined to make fine wines – not the jug wines California was mostly known for at the time – and by the 1970s his Cabernet Sauvignons were impressing connoisseurs in the U.S. and Europe. Today the winery is no longer owned by the Mondavi family, though its wines continue to win high praise. Robert Mondavi Winery owns 1,540 acres in Napa Valley and its premiere wines are Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon To Kalon Reserve.

Carneros AVA, also known as Los Carneros, is at the southern end of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys at the top of the San Francisco Bay. The 8,000 vineyard acres are mostly planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, both of which thrive in the district’s cool, marine climate. Carneros became an AVA in 1983 and it has attracted foreign wine companies along with local producers. It has been especially appealing to European producers of sparkling wines including the giant Spanish cava producers Codorniu and Frexinet, and the French Champagne house Taittinger. Codorniu in Carneros is called Artesa, and Frexinet’s Carneros brand is Gloria Ferrer. Taittinger calls its Carneros winery Domaine Carneros. The European producers also make still wines in Carneros.

This red wine is relatively light and can pair with a wide variety of foods. The grape prefers cooler climates and the wine is most often associated with Burgundy, Champagne and the U.S. west coast. Regional differences make it nearly as fickle as it is flexible.