Published by Jeremy.
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One thing I absolutely love to do when shopping for wine is checking out a store's clearance bin. When you'd think a clearance bin would be just for poor wine, we've had some surprising finds, including many bottles from many famous producers marked down because wine staff thought “they were getting old.”
This is how we found a bottle of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay 2018 for about $10 off list price, and snatched it up right away.
A seven year old California Chardonnay at a much more appropriate price point? Well, we are in, and took that discount in a heartbeat thank you very much.
Mondavi Chardonnay Sings at Seven Years Old
This California Chardonnay was medium lemon in color with medium aromas of lemon, yellow apple, pear, cream, toast, butter, white blossom, pineapple, marmalade, and mint. It had a prominent butter and cream note as expected from California Chardonnays, but we suspect its time in bottle helped restrain this one to be a bit more in line with what we enjoy.
On the palate, it was dry with medium(+) acidity, body, and flavor intensity, medium alcohol, and a long finish. We had slightly more reserved notes compared to the nose with lemon, lime, pear, wet stone, toast, caramel, orange marmalade, cream, butter, and almond.
This bottle was showing its age nicely and had a lovely balance of all the characteristics of a fine Chardonnay.
Chardonnay Food Pairing – Mushroom, Corn, and Tomato Ragu on Biscuits
We paired this one with homemade biscuits topped with a ragu of mushroom, corn, and tomato as we thought the richness of the toppings and the yeastiness of the biscuits would work well with a malo and oak-forward wine.
This one showcased more tropical fruit notes with the pairing, particularly pineapple, but also interestingly enough caused a spike in caramel and vanilla notes as well (which we would assume was likely due to the biscuit component). All around, a pretty enjoyable pairing!
Score: 3.5 / 5
We'd buy a glass of this one and a bottle in the right circumstance.
Overall, we really enjoyed this Robert Mondavi Chardonnay. Admittedly, we do think that some of the characteristics of this bottle we enjoyed the most were that it was slightly aged and at a discount, which means we may never see such a bottle like this one again. That said, we'd easily buy a glass of this one and consider a bottle if we found it at a good price point all the same.
Robert Mondavi Winery is located at 930 3rd Street Napa, CA 94559. We purchased this bottle locally and enjoyed it in 2025.
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