The 1978 Robert Mondavi Reserve cabernet sauvignon will always occupy a warm spot in my heart, as this was the wine I drank on my first visit to New York as an adult back in 1986. We drank it at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center and it helped inspire me to move to the city a couple of years later. Beyond its sentimental value for me, the wine is really one of the best Mondavi cabernets of the decade of the 1970s and continues to drink beautifully today at age thirty-eight. The bouquet wafts from the glass in an excellent mélange of black cherries, cigar wrapper, a touch of eucalyptus, a fine base of Rutherford Bench soil tones and a deft touch of cedary wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and alive with the vibrancy of peak maturity, with a good core, tangy acids and outstanding length and grip on the refined and very classy finish. This is at its apogee and is a superb example of the fine ’78 vintage. (Drink between 2016-2040) 94+