Robert Mondavi Private Selection Cabernet Sauvignon Red Wine

What does the grape name on this bottle actually tell a shopper? Some things, not everything. Our grape notes call Cabernet Sauvignon a red grape grown in many wine regions, one that often makes firmly built wines and turns up in plenty of red blends. The guides for the category name black currant, cherry and plum as its common fruit references, with noticeable tannin, and they attach useful fine print: ripeness, climate and winemaking decide whether a given bottle turns out lean and herbal in style or broad and fruit-led. So the grape name narrows the field and leaves the rest open.

Those specific gaps have closed since: the producer's own product page now names Central Coast and Lodi as the fruit's source, with Monterey County and Paso Robles credited by name, and dates the brand itself to 1994. The rating is better supplied too. 131 shoppers, a count matched by few of the wines we rate, put it at 4.73 as of August 12, 2026; the median across everything we rate is 4.71.

The price varies from store to store. Our checks in September 2026 found the same wine anywhere from $8.99 to $16.99 depending on the store, across nine stores, and at its cheapest it lands inside the lowest tenth of the reds we track. So look at the tag in front of you: our checks show the same bottle selling for very different money store to store.

The producer's page fills in the winemaking behind those names: French and American oak barrels for aging, and tasting notes built around ripe cherry, blackberry and cassis, with black pepper, vanilla, toasty oak and French roast coffee carrying through a long, smooth finish. The site also lists a “Best Buy 2023” badge and a 90-point 2024 score for the wine, though the page does not attribute either to a named critic or publication, and it frames the brand's founding around drawing “distinctive flavors from California's premier coastal vineyards” out of Ripon, California.

Our call: a natural pick for the price-first shopper; at its lowest shelf tag the bottle lands among the least expensive reds we track, it draws one of the larger rating pools in our records, and it now carries a stated Central Coast and Lodi sourcing with a brand history dating to 1994. Pass if you want more than a wide-region story; the page names Central Coast, Lodi, Monterey County and Paso Robles as contributors without exact percentages, and it does not publish an ABV, so the finer print behind the label stays the producer's to keep.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.