Monday,
May 19, 2008
Obit: Robert Mondavi,
94; Powerful Ambassador for
The
ANNOTICO Report
One
of the best-known figures in American viticulture, he had little formal
training in making wine. His exile from the family business became the stuff of
legend.
One
of the best-known figures in American viticulture, he had little formal
training in making wine. His exile from the family business became the stuff of
legend.
Los Angeles Times
By Shawn Hubler, Special to The Times
May 17, 2008
Robert
Mondavi, the pioneering
The son of an Italian-born grape wholesaler from the Central Valley, Mondavi was, at the end of his life, one of the best-known
figures in American viticulture, with a name that was almost synonymous with
His
Mission-style winery in
At a time when the phrase "fine domestic wine" was considered an
oxymoron in the
When Chateau Mouton-Rothschild of
In a statement, state Sen. Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) called Mondavi "the godfather of American wines."
"His passion for excellence and his ability to inspire people were the
keys to his success. . . . He put
Mondavi also put wine on the dinner tables of
Americans, said Thomas Keller, owner of Yountville
And Doug Shafer, president of Shafer Napa Valley Wines, told The Times: "
Like most salesmen, Mondavi understood the power of a
good st ory. He spoke
freely and frequently with reporters and historians and, in 1998, published
"Harvests of Joy: How the Good Life Became Great Business," his
autobiography.
Rivals occasionally resented his innate gift for public relations. Some
complained that he took too much credit for shaping the industry and
As Mondavi
For all this, Mondavi was viewed as a powerful
ambassador for wine and
"Robert Mondavi had a vision for
Robert Gerald Mondavi, born June 18, 1913, in
Virginia,
Domestic wine was then associated with immigrants like his father, Cesare Mondavi, who came to this country in 1906 from the isolated
farm town of
For the Italian families in town, wine was a staple; for Cesare Mondavi, it was also a livelihood. Under the terms of
Prohibition, liquor and beer sales were banned, but families could make up to
200 gallons for home consumption. In 1919, shortly after Prohibition was
enacted, the local Italian Club deputized Cesare Mondavi
to go to
He soon became a grape wholesaler in the Central Valley agricultural town of
By that time, Robert Mondavi was attending
In 1936, with a bachelor
At the time,
A handful of winemakers saw potential, however, and one inspired the young
Robert Mondavi. He was Andre Tchelistcheff,
a Russian-born agronomist with Beaulieu Vineyards, which was owned by a
French-born aristocrat and was producing fine Cabernet.
"I was sure we could make wines that belonged in that company," Mondavi told wine writer Cyril Ray, author of the 1984
biography "Robert Mondavi of the
In 1943, when the distinguished Charles Krug Winery fell on hard times, Mondavi persuaded his father to buy the rundown landmark.
Although it stretched the family
Krug was among the first wineries in the valley to make extensive use of cold
fermentation -- keeping some wines below 60 degrees to retain fruitiness -- and
to open a tasting room for visitors.
But the brothers had wildly different dispositions. Robert was volatile and
relentless, pushing his staff and leaving home for weeks at a time to peddle
Krug products. Peter was methodical and reserved. For a time, the two even
pronounced the family name differently -- Robert said Mon-DAH-vi, Peter used
the Anglicized Mon-DAY-vi. Their differences exploded into wine country legend
after their father, who had always mediated their conflicts, died in 1959.
Robert Mondavi traced their now-famous falling out to
two events, the first of which was a 1962 vacation in
"A great business and creative venture took shape before my eyes," Mondavi wrote. "I wanted to take American technology,
management techniques and marketing savvy and fuse them together with
At the time, Americans still regarded creamed chipped beef as a dinner staple
and Peter Mondavi saw steadier profits in the status
quo. The elder brother persuaded the younger to experiment with French oak
casks, but without their father to inte rvene, their disagreement festered.
The brothers bickered at a family gathering in 1965 and Peter accused Robert of
overspending on travel and promotion, then of taking money from the family
business.
"I smacked him, hard. Twice," Robert Mondavi
wrote in his memoir, and afterward "there were no apologies and no
handshake." The fight sundered the family, which voted to put Robert Mondavi on six months
In 1965, at 52, Robert Mondavi started over. Holding
on to his share of Charles Krug, he got backing from an old friend and two
local grape growers, moved from the Krug property, which had become a Mondavi family compound and, with borrowed money, bought a
well-situated vineyard in Oakville, at the valley
< BR>The Robert Mondavi Winery broke ground in
1966 as
To maintain a paycheck, Mondavi consulted at other
wineries. Meanwhile, he launched his own business with his wife, children and a
few loyal ex-Krug employees. He invested in state-of-the-art equipment,
learning the hard way that too-rigorous sanitation technology can strip wine of
subtlety and flavor. He was among the first to use computers to control
temperature in fermentation tanks, and he used scientific methods to test such
things as vine trel lising
and barrel charring techniques.
When a grower sent him a crop of fine but unpopular Sauvignon Blanc grapes, he
used French oak barrels to age his Sauvignon Blanc and gave the wine a
glamorous, French-sounding name, "Fumi
Blanc." Sometimes called "the poor man
Glad-handing was also a business necessity because doing business Mondavi-style was costly. He traveled internationally at
the winery
"For the first few years after the winery was built, we spent half the
year on the road, shaking hands with people," his oldest son, Michael Mondavi, told The Times in 1991.
In 1976, a month after Rosa Mondavi died of cancer, the courts ruled that Robert Mondavi
could liquidate his share of Krug. The financial settlement cost the rest of
the Mondavi family millions and crippled Krug
financially for nearly a decade. But it enabled Robert Mondavi
to expand his business and buy back control of his company from his partners.
By then a seminal event had occurred in the wine world. On May 24, 1976,
British connoisseur Stephen Spurrier had organized a
blind tasting in
The event went down in wine history as "The Judgment of Paris."
Although no Mondavi wines had been judged, the
winners in the red and white wine categories were by Mondavi
proteges and ex-employees. Mondavi
later said he was "tickled to death" by the outcome: Napa Valley had
clearly arrived as a major wine region, and the world approbation was seen as
an endorsement of Mondavi
In 1978, he finally partnered with the Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the
celebrated French vintner who a decade earlier had compared American wines to
soda pop. Mondavi provided land and facilities and
the baron sent his wine master to produce a top-of-the-line California Cabernet
Sauvignon. Few
The drive that was such a source of strength in Mondavi
As his marriage of four decades deteriorated, by his account, he fell in love
with Margrit Biever, a
polished, Swiss-born employee whom he had known since his Krug years. He
divorced M arge and, in 1980, married for a second
time.
In 1990, Mondavi stepped down as president of his
winery. His two sons shared the title of chief executive officer at first, but
a power struggle reminiscent of Mondavi
In 1993, strapped for capital after a phylloxera
epidemic forced a costly replanting, Mondavi became
the third winery in
But starting in 2001,
In 2004 the Robert Mondavi Corp. restructured, which
boosted the stock price but undercut family control. The company was bought out
by alcoholic beverage marketer and producer Constellation Brands for about $1
billion.
Influential critic Robert M. Parker Jr. had called some Mondavi
wines from the late 1990s "uninspiring" but softened his comments
about later vintages. And other critics seemed to appreciate the winery
"I like gentle, friendly, food-centered wine," Mondavi
told The Times in 2003, and he pointed out that he continued to enjoy it. He
drank two glasses of wine at lunch and split a bottle each night with his wife,
Margrit, who survives him.
Mondavi is also survived by his children, Michael,
Marcia and Timothy; nine grandchildren; and his brother, Peter.
Services will be private.
Instead of flowers, the family suggests donations to Copia; UC Davis, Oxbow School; or Stanford University.
Shawn Hubler is a former Times staff writer.
Times staff writers Valerie J. Nelson, Corie Brown
and Jerry Hirsch contributed to this report.
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