*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the PR folks for Mondavi.
I don’t do a lot of blind tasting. However, I’m trying to do a bit more, if for nothing else other than to test my guessing skills. I made Matt go get something from the basement and he handed me a glass without telling me anything about it. I only knew it was a white wine. This one turned out to be easy…one whiff told me this was a CA Chardonnay. He had selected the 2007 Robert Mondavi Solaire Chardonnay. It had a real cork closure, clocked in at 13.5% alcohol by volume, and suggested retail is $15, though I see it online for about $13. The grapes in this Chard hail from the Santa Lucia Highlands.
What told me this was a Chard? Toast and butter. After that I got pear, yellow apple, spice, banana, tropical notes, smoke, coconut cream, and spicy pear. Not a bad start with the nose, but it leaned just a bit too much into toast and butter for me. Where it went downhill a bit for me was in the mouth. In the mouth I found apple, pear, spice, and lemon. The fruit showed as really round on the palate and didn’t offer as much acidity as I would have liked.
Filed under: California, Chardonnay, Robert Mondavi, White, Wine | Comments Off on Blind Tasting
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