WTN: 1992 Mondavi Cabernet

Anyone remember the early 90s Mondavi wines when the advertising idiots won out over good sense and got one of the most stupidly designed bottles I’ve seen approved? It had a large horizontal excrescence on the top of the bottle that looked like a big glass flat washer, and it prevented the use of many types of corkscrew, including the Screwpull, which wouldn’t fit over it, and the waiter’s friend which slipped on the rim. Thankflully good sense returned (and customer complaints probably helped) and the reverted to normal bottles soon after – anyone recall how long they sold the ‘big top’ versions?

Anyway, that was as introduction to a tasting note on one of those bottles, the 1992 Cabernet (regular).

Getting a little pale at the edges, but a nice mature nose with vanilla and plum (Mondavi never stinted on the oak!), a nice sweet entry and then quite dry on palate with dry tannins, good length, and a slightly astringent finish. Decent but not up to the excellent 1990 regular cab.

[Jenise]

I forgot about that! And remember well all the hullabaloo over it. I doubt it lasted beyond two vintages. And no, Mondavi never stinted on the oak but the wines always seemed to have good acidity in a way that all came together after a good long rest. Was always a fan.

[David M. Bueker]

The flange lasted a lot longer than you want to remember.

That bottle was perhaps the height of the stupidity, but the use of heavy bottles with no-parallel sides that are impossible to stack easily is also something that irks me, particularly as the weight was something that got included in the end pricing to the consumer via shipping costs.

I'll forgive the Alsatian producers - they have tradition on their side and even though the long slim bottles occasionally attempt hara kiri, showing a notable reluctance to sit quietly in the racking, I've thwarted them by using a carpeted floor.

Does anyone remember if there were other producers that used the Mondavi big flat washer bottle? Maybe I should save this one as a memento of bad ideas past? Put it beside my old Cordier bottles (everybody remember the 1970s squat Talbot, Meyney etc.?)

[David M. Bueker]

Well the Turley "fat lip" bottles smack of the Mondavi "washer" gone to a terrible extreme, not to mention the ridiculously fat bottoms of those dreaded Turley bottles.