Robert Mondavi dies

Robert Gerald Mondavi, who dreamed of putting Napa Valley onto the map of world-class wines beside the best of Europe and succeeded beyond his wildest imagination, died of natural causes Friday morning at home in Yountville at the age of 94.

Over his lifetime, the Mondavi legend spanned the creation of a signature Napa Valley winery, a famous feud with his brother Peter and a bold decision to take his company public, only to lose it to an international conglomerate.

In time, the Mondavi name also became synonymous with innovations in winemaking, and a commitment to giving back to the community that led to creation of the Napa Wine Auction and funding of a performing arts hall that bears his name.

His influence on the Napa Valley wine region was unparalleled.

“No single individual has had as great an impact on the American wine industry, and in some respects on the global wine industry, as Robert Mondavi," said Vic Motto, a veteran Napa Valley wine industry consultant.

At Mondavi’s Oakville Winery Friday, winery workers began closing the complex at 2 p.m., ushering visitors out and issuing refunds to those who had prepaid for tours.. Earlier, American and California flags were lowered to half staff, as was the Italian flag which had replaced the European Union flag. In the morning, visitors were offered a complimentery tasting in honor of the man who brought Napa Valley wine to the world.

“Everyone knows Robert Mondavi, and when you think of wine you think of Robert Mondavi and Napa," said Yvonne Miranda, visiting at the winery today from Honolulu, Hawaii. She said she was shocked to learn of the passing of this icon of American wine. Others were reflective, noting the long history of not just Robert Mondavi, but the family that has been an anchor along Highway 29 for decades.

In addition to his brother, he is survived by his second wife, Margrit Biever Mondavi, two sons, R. Michael and Timothy, and daughter Marcia Mondavi Borger.

“He wasn’t so interested in making a name for himself,” said Richard Arrowood, whose Sonoma Valley winery was purchased by the Robert Mondavi Corp. in 2000. “He wanted to make sure he could bring the beauty and excitement and pleasure of wine to all of us."

Born in Hibbing, Minn., the third of four children born to Italian immigrants Cesare and Rosa, Mondavi from early on was obsessed with being the best.

In his 1998 autobiography, “Harvests of Joy: How the Good Life Became Great Business,” he wrote, “Wine to me is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.”

“He had a love of people and an enthusiasm that was infectious,” said Clay Gregory, former general manager of Robert Mondavi Winery and now president of Jackson Family Wines. “In those 94 years, he lived the equivalent of 200 for most people. He made the most of every day.”

At the age of 10, the family moved west to Lodi, then the grape capital of the United States, where Cesare made a business of buying grapes wholesale and shipping them to the Midwest and East Coast, to Italian families looking to craft homemade wines.

Mondavi attended Stanford University where he studied economics and business administration and played rugby. After graduation and encouraged by his father, who saw a great future in California wine, particularly from the grapes being grown in Napa, Mondavi took a summer crash course in viticulture and enology from Vic Enriques, a professor of enology at University of California at Berkeley.

In the fall of 1936, he arrived in St. Helena and went to work for Jack Riorda, a friend of his father’s who ran a small bulk-winery operation called Sunnyhill Winery, later known as Sunny St. Helena and the site of present-day Merryvale Vineyards.

In 1937 he married high-school sweetheart Marjorie Declusin, the two then moved into a little house on Charter Oak Street in St. Helena, where they soon started a family.

In 1943 Mondavi heard that the fabled Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, founded in 1861 and one of the first ever in Napa Valley, was for sale. He convinced his father to buy it, and he in turn insisted that Robert co-run the business with his younger brother, Peter. The two operated the winery together for 23 years, living on site alongside their parents during much of that time. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Krug was among the “Big Five” wineries of the Napa Valley, which also included Beaulieu Vineyard, Inglenook, Louis Martini and Beringer Brothers.

In 1962 Mondavi made his first voyage to Europe, visiting many of the great wine-producing regions to see how they made their wines, including Bordeaux, Burgundy, Tuscany and the Moselle region of Germany.

But coming back to Krug, Mondavi did not find his brother Peter always willing to go along with his larger vision. The two famously came down to fisticuffs in November 1965, Robert admitting that he “smacked (Peter), hard. Twice.”

At issue was Robert’s purchase of a mink coat for then-wife Marjorie, in anticipation of a state dinner invitation to the White House, a dinner ultimately pre-empted by President John Kennedy’s assassination.

The two Mondavi brothers were already in their early 50’s and had been in business together for decades. But the split became official, lengthy and public, with a bitter and tangled lawsuit and 103-day court case involving lawyer and future San Francisco mayor Joe Alioto, who represented Peter and Rosa against Robert.

On August 12, 1976, a 159-page verdict was issued, ruling that Peter, Rosa and the family partnership had acted improperly. The judge also ordered that Krug be sold and Robert be paid compensatory damages totaling $538,885 plus his 20 percent share of Krug evaluated at fair market value. Rosa died a month before the verdict was read.

In the end, the parties settled, allowing Peter to hold onto Krug. And with the proceeds, Robert, then 65 years old, was able to take over complete ownership of the Robert Mondavi Winery.

“The family had made preparations for this day for a long time. Whether his passing heals the family, I don’t know,” said Julia Flynn Siler, author of “The House of Mondavi,” released in June 2007.

He had opened the doors to his namesake winery in Oakville in 1966. The first big new winery to be built from the ground up in Napa since Louis Martini’s winery in 1934, its construction marked the beginning of what historian Thomas Pinney has called, “a new era of unrelenting, and highly successful, promotion for the region.”

The first wine released by the Robert Mondavi Winery was a gamay rose, made available in March 1967, just six months after the winery’s first harvest. It sold for $1.79 a bottle.

Among the many innovations and new ideas that came out of Mondavi throughout its history (the winery was often called “Mondavi University”) was the use of French oak barrels for aging wine. At the time, the only other winery in California to do so was Hanzell in Sonoma.

In addition to barrel aging, Mondavi was also a pioneer in vacuum bottling and cold fermentation, techniques that Mondavi himself picked up through his travels.

“I wanted to take American technology, management techniques and marketing savvy and fuse them together with Old World tradition and elegance in the art of making fine wine,” he wrote in “Harvests of Joy.”

Of his tireless promotion of Napa, good friend Ernest Gallo supposedly said of Mondavi, when asked how it was Mondavi had become one of the premier spokespeople, “Well, look at everyone else!”

The Gallo brothers never spoke to the press and many others in the wine industry, farmers and growers predominantly, didn’t like to speak to reporters or the public either.

By his own admission, Mondavi never stopped, willing to talk to anyone who would listen about the greatness of his and other Napa Valley wines. He was known to go up to strangers at restaurants and offer them tastes of his wines and to duck out of important business meetings to take a reporter for a winery tour.

Mondavi took his company public in 1993. Over the next decade sales rose to $468 million and the company owned or co-owned such internationally known brands as Robert Mondavi Winery, Robert Mondavi Private Selection, Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi, Opus One, Ornellaia, Luce della Vite, Lucente, Arrowood, La Famiglia di Robert Mondavi, Hang Time, Byron and Caliterra.

By early 2004 Mondavi’s board of directors was suggesting he split the company in two, selling his luxury brands, including Robert Mondavi Winery and its 50 percent share in Opus One, while holding on to the inexpensive value brands such as Woodbridge.

Instead, in December 2004 Constellation Brands bought the entire company for $1.3 billion, keeping Robert on as chairman emeritus and roving ambassador for his namesake wines.

He later formed a partnership with son Tim to produce Continuum, a cabernet sauvignon/petit verdot/cabernet franc blend sourced from vineyards that had previously belonged to the family. The 2005 vintage, its first, is expected to be released in the spring of 2008.

Over the years, Robert and Margrit Mondavi became generous benefactors to many local causes and helped found the Napa Valley Wine Auction in 1981. In 2001 they gave $35 million to UC Davis to establish the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and to name the school’s Center for the Performing Arts.

The two were also the visionary founders and major contributors to COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa; founding supporters of the restoration of the Napa Valley Opera House as well as the Napa-based Oxbow School, providing grants and instruction to art students in their junior year of high school.

The Mondavis also contributed to the restoration of the Lincoln Theatre in Yountville and supported the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University.

Funeral services will be private, according to Mia Malm, Director of Public Relations for the winery.

Staff Writers Derek Moore and Diane Peterson contributed to this report.