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Mondavi Wine Family Tale
Outdoes Any Fictional Epic

By Fred Delkin

Drama oozes from every page of a just published chronicle of 100 years and four generations of the Mondavi wine family. Wall Street Journal staffer Julia Flynn Siler has crafted a true page turner in "The House of Mondavi...Rise & Fall of an American Wine Dynasty." While another Italian immigrant wine family, the Gallos, first popularized the fermented grape for a mass American audience, the Mondavis introduced premium bottlings rivaling European import quality. The Pied Piper of this movement was Robert Mondavi, who just left us at the age of 94.

Author Siler has performed a remarkable reporting feat, penetrating the inner circle of the Mondavi empire, combining her reportage with dramatic skill. Her meticulous research and over 500 hours of interviews lead us through a saga that began when immigrants Cesare and Rosa Mondavi embarked at Ellis Island in 1906. They moved to an Italian immigrant community in northern Minnesota, opening a grocery store and fostered a family of 2 boys and 2 girls. Cesare was soon sponsored by his neighbors to undertake a train trip to California in search of wine grapes for home distilling. That soon led the family to Lodi, where Italian immigrants had planted vineyards.

Here Cesare established an enterprise shipping wine grapes east, where enterprising fellow countrymen answered the advent of Prohibition by making their own vinous hootch at home. The legislative dry spell ended in 1933 as the Mondavi enterprise expanded and funded Stanford University educations for Robert and his younger brother Peter. Cesare had explored California's wine regions and convinced his sons that the Napa valley was ideal for pursuing his dream of producing premium wine.

Charles Krug revived

Robert taught himself winemaking at the Sunny St. Helena winery during World War II and when he learned that the Charles Krug ranch, established by a Prussian immigrant in 1861 as the Napa region's first winery, had come to the auction block as distressed property, convinced his father that this was an ideal opportunity to follow his fine wine desires with a modest $75,000 investment for the winery, buildings and vineyard property. Cesare agreed to the 1943 deal on the condition that Robert and Peter would work together to rebuild the business.

They followed their father's wishes and with Peter working production and Robert marketing, the Mondavis earned their first gold medal for a white Gewurztraminer judged at the California state fair. By 1950, the Krug label got national press notice in Life and Newsweek
magazines. Robert's selling instincts morphed the Krug property into a tourist destination, certified when it was a setting for Alfred Hitchcock's Academy award-winning cinematic tour de force "Vertigo."

The Napa valley became a weekend getaway for San Franciscans and winery tasting rooms became a tourist must. The generic bulk wines labeled as Italian Swiss Colony, Roma and Gallo became challenged by the better quality of 750m bottlings from the Napa region by Krug, Inglenook, Beaulieu, Beringer and Louis Martini. Success, however, began to erode the relationship between the Mondavi brothers. Peter was the conservative one, Robert the sales dynamo.

Family conflicts erupt

Cesare left the scene with a fatal heart attack in 1959 as enmity built between his sons. Robert became evangelical about his premium wine aspirations while Peter resisted any significant financial investments in that direction. Robert's aspirations took him to Europe to study Old World wine-making techniques and he contracted for oak aging barrels as a replacement for huge redwood tanks that had defined Napa winery storage activity. By 1965, the brothers split, with Peter retaining control of the Krug operation and Robert looking for investors in his dreams of vinous perfection.

(photo courtesy Robert Mondavi Corporation)

Robert found dollars in the Seattle Rainier brewery family to invest in the Robert Mondavi winery which was opened in 1966 as the showplace of Napa valley and which we visited in 1968 on a wine education tour pursuant to establishing a wine program for our purchase of Jake's Crawfish restaurant in Portland. The dramatic, historic Spanish mission style of Robert's new winery still adorns his premium wine labels and the grounds continue to host spectacular culinary events that began with the late Julia Child as the star attraction.

International ties opened

With the opening of his foray into producing world-class wines, Robert followed his marketing instinct to forge international partnerships with the leading family wine-making dynasties in France, Italy and Chile. His amalgamation with the Bordeaux house of Phillippe de
Rotchschild has resulted in creation of the Opus One red wine label now gracing its own winery in Napa's Oakville community. The Frescobaldis of Italy and the Chadwicks of Chile were wooed by Robert into joint marketing expeditions.

Robert earned more individual acclaim than any other U.S.wine industry figure..."Man of the Year" in both consumer and trade publications, European Wine Council"s Lifetime Achievment award, French Legion d'Honneur, California Hall of Fame and many more. He funded the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine & Food Science at University of California Davis.

Legacy of memorable quotes

Mondavi is credited with some notable quotes.."making good wine is a skill, fine wine an art"..."drink what you like, and like what you drink"..."the greatest leaders don't rule, they inspire"..."all things in moderation with a few glorious exceptions."

A colorful character, with a history with the opposite sex that justifies his Italian heritage...but you must read author Siler's chronicle to marvel at his pecadillos and know why it all came apart before his demise. This is truly a scenario worthy of Borgia or Machiavelli.