Bruce Schoenfeld: I’d love to discuss this wine without immediately obsessing about the alcohol level, but it isn’t possible. Tasting it among nearly two dozen older Mondavi Reserve Cabernets, most of which were fresh and elegant, accentuates this vintage’s power, milky texture, and pure alcoholic ferocity. At 15.9% ABV, it’s closer to Madeira than to many of the earlier wines. Numbers aside, alcohol dominates this wine as Napoleon does discussions of early 19th-century France. There’s some lovely fruit—plums and blueberries—and finely wrought tannin, but who can pay attention to such details with such a stiff drink at hand?