The late Robert Mondavi is widely credited with making California wines famous for quality, and his celebrated winery turns 50 this year. At a vertical tasting of some of Mondavi's best wines of the previous decade - the cabernet sauvignon reserves of 2002 and 2005-2009, media and the local trade got a quick lecture on how weather affected each year's production and blending.

Director of winemaking Genevieve Janssens seemed to favor the rich, smooth vintages from cool and wet 2005 and 2006, but the Chinese crowd-pleaser was probably the big and bold 2007 vintage, one of the winery's biggest successes. Needless to say, little of these wines ended up in the tasting spittoons.

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