Robert Mondavi was the Patriarch of American Wine
Robert Mondavi passed away last month just shy of his 95th birthday. Surely every wine drinker knows of the man & his eponymous winery, but I'm guessing that not everyone understands the tremendous impact he had on the world of wine. Not just American wine, which he single-handedly drove from bulk jug wines to some of the best wines in the world, but also the global wine business.
Robert had always been an advocate for the fullest expression of the grape. He understood the importance of terroir, and the place wine had in the homes and restaurants of Europe -- it was inextricably linked to food, art, religion, history, and family. This idea put him at odds while running Mondavi-owned Charles Krug winery, a winery his father Cesare had purchased before his death. His brother Peter was purely a businessman -- not interested in Robert's ideas for making truly fine wines. The friction was so great that the family ousted Robert from Krug and forever changed his relationship with his brother and mother. Robert sued for being fired and removed from the board and he won. It took ten years and caused irreparable damage with his family, but this was the single biggest event in Napa Valley since prohibition.
Robert's next step was to start his own winery, modeled after the great chateaus he visited in Europe. It was the first new winery bonded and built in Napa Valley since prohibition. It's a grand structure located directly on Highway 29. It was built with the intention of holding tastings and educating visitors. These concepts were brand new to the valley. Let me repeat that -- wine tasting at the winery was a concept introduced by Robert Mondavi. Limo bus drivers the state over should bow their heads in a moment of silence.
Robert was truly a visionary in the valley. He sought out the best land to plant his vines. For example, he correctly recognized and bought most of the vineyard known as To Kalon to plant to Cabernet Sauvignon. "To Kalon" means "highest quality" in Greek. This fruit would become the benchmark for great Bordeaux-style wines in the valley and would later drive producers to emulate this style.
Robert brought European techniques to the American wine industry. Cold soak fermentations for cleanliness & crispness, open top fermentation for gentleness, and the use of oak barrels in aging. These requisite techniques in today's wineries owe their lineage to Robert Mondavi. All of them have a specific role in the delicate dance of turning grapes into wine, and they were systematically ignored before Robert's dedication to them.
Perhaps Robert's greatest achievement was the role of ambassador for American wine. He wasn't content to simply make the best wines ever to carry a California heritage, he took it upon himself to fly around the country and the world to hold tastings and educate restaurant owners and staff about California wine. You simply didn't see California wine on restaurant lists in our own country until Robert, on his own dime, made the effort to change that.
Maybe the greatest compliment of his dedication to fine wines came from the unlikely partnership with the Rothschild family of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux for the creation of Opus Wine Winery in Napa. Other than the famed Paris Tasting of 1976 where some California wines bested the French in blind tastings, this partnership was the most visible and concrete example that California was on the same playing field with France in terms of truly fine wines. Not to mention the family's partnership with the Frescobaldi family of Tuscany, a 700 year producer of fine Italian wines. Mondavi's hand was touching wines all over the world. He held property in Argentina, Mexico, and the Languedoc region of France. To truly know how respected he was, even in the Old World, Mondavi was awarded France's Legion of Honor in 2005 -- the highest decoration in France.
Practically every great winemaker in the valley worked at Mondavi at some point -- Mike Grgich & Paul Hobbs immediately come to mind. Mondavi set the style for the valley -- opulent fruit, but made with grace & structure. It's slightly ironic that some of the most iconic and hard-to-get wines today come from Mondavi's old property: Screaming Eagle, Schrader, Hobbs, and Harlan come to mind.
And in that last comment lies the great tragedy of Robert's life: the loss of his winery and vineyards to Constellation Brands in 2004 for $1.04 billion dollars. The winery still operates with his name, and in the structures he had designed, in the shadow of the vines he had planted, but the current releases from the winery are not the same wines. It's more than tragic once you know the way in which the winery was lost: Robert was an extremely philanthropic fellow. Following the listing of the winery on the Nasdaq, Robert used the escalating stock price as currency to fund his extravagant donations: The Cantor Art Center at his alma mater Stanford, a $35 million dollar donation to UC Davis for the construction of The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the restoration of the Napa Valley Opera House, the creation of The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa (COPIA), and many other projects. When the stock price started to tank (largely because of brand dilution with lower priced wines), any reasonable business man would have renegotiated those donations. Robert was never a good businessman. He was always a man of character, passion, and drive. He begrudgingly agreed to sell his stock in order to meet the promised money to these projects.
Perhaps the last great compliment for his wines came last year when Wine Spectator listed the family's last offering, a 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, as one of the top 10 wines of the year.
We sadly mourn the death of this iconic figure. The patriarch of American Wine. Every glass of wine you enjoy, no matter if from Napa or Tuscany, was somehow touched by the standards and traditions that Robert Mondavi brought to the table. We will be holding a tasting at The Cask Room on June 18th of the family wines of Robert Mondavi. We'll be taking a portion of the proceeds to gift to his Copia center for wine education. I can't think of a better way to celebrate this man than to drink his wine and donate money to the project that he was most passionate about.
Robert had always been an advocate for the fullest expression of the grape. He understood the importance of terroir, and the place wine had in the homes and restaurants of Europe -- it was inextricably linked to food, art, religion, history, and family. This idea put him at odds while running Mondavi-owned Charles Krug winery, a winery his father Cesare had purchased before his death. His brother Peter was purely a businessman -- not interested in Robert's ideas for making truly fine wines. The friction was so great that the family ousted Robert from Krug and forever changed his relationship with his brother and mother. Robert sued for being fired and removed from the board and he won. It took ten years and caused irreparable damage with his family, but this was the single biggest event in Napa Valley since prohibition.
Robert's next step was to start his own winery, modeled after the great chateaus he visited in Europe. It was the first new winery bonded and built in Napa Valley since prohibition. It's a grand structure located directly on Highway 29. It was built with the intention of holding tastings and educating visitors. These concepts were brand new to the valley. Let me repeat that -- wine tasting at the winery was a concept introduced by Robert Mondavi. Limo bus drivers the state over should bow their heads in a moment of silence.
Robert was truly a visionary in the valley. He sought out the best land to plant his vines. For example, he correctly recognized and bought most of the vineyard known as To Kalon to plant to Cabernet Sauvignon. "To Kalon" means "highest quality" in Greek. This fruit would become the benchmark for great Bordeaux-style wines in the valley and would later drive producers to emulate this style.
Robert brought European techniques to the American wine industry. Cold soak fermentations for cleanliness & crispness, open top fermentation for gentleness, and the use of oak barrels in aging. These requisite techniques in today's wineries owe their lineage to Robert Mondavi. All of them have a specific role in the delicate dance of turning grapes into wine, and they were systematically ignored before Robert's dedication to them.
Perhaps Robert's greatest achievement was the role of ambassador for American wine. He wasn't content to simply make the best wines ever to carry a California heritage, he took it upon himself to fly around the country and the world to hold tastings and educate restaurant owners and staff about California wine. You simply didn't see California wine on restaurant lists in our own country until Robert, on his own dime, made the effort to change that.
Maybe the greatest compliment of his dedication to fine wines came from the unlikely partnership with the Rothschild family of Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux for the creation of Opus Wine Winery in Napa. Other than the famed Paris Tasting of 1976 where some California wines bested the French in blind tastings, this partnership was the most visible and concrete example that California was on the same playing field with France in terms of truly fine wines. Not to mention the family's partnership with the Frescobaldi family of Tuscany, a 700 year producer of fine Italian wines. Mondavi's hand was touching wines all over the world. He held property in Argentina, Mexico, and the Languedoc region of France. To truly know how respected he was, even in the Old World, Mondavi was awarded France's Legion of Honor in 2005 -- the highest decoration in France.
Practically every great winemaker in the valley worked at Mondavi at some point -- Mike Grgich & Paul Hobbs immediately come to mind. Mondavi set the style for the valley -- opulent fruit, but made with grace & structure. It's slightly ironic that some of the most iconic and hard-to-get wines today come from Mondavi's old property: Screaming Eagle, Schrader, Hobbs, and Harlan come to mind.
And in that last comment lies the great tragedy of Robert's life: the loss of his winery and vineyards to Constellation Brands in 2004 for $1.04 billion dollars. The winery still operates with his name, and in the structures he had designed, in the shadow of the vines he had planted, but the current releases from the winery are not the same wines. It's more than tragic once you know the way in which the winery was lost: Robert was an extremely philanthropic fellow. Following the listing of the winery on the Nasdaq, Robert used the escalating stock price as currency to fund his extravagant donations: The Cantor Art Center at his alma mater Stanford, a $35 million dollar donation to UC Davis for the construction of The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the restoration of the Napa Valley Opera House, the creation of The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa (COPIA), and many other projects. When the stock price started to tank (largely because of brand dilution with lower priced wines), any reasonable business man would have renegotiated those donations. Robert was never a good businessman. He was always a man of character, passion, and drive. He begrudgingly agreed to sell his stock in order to meet the promised money to these projects.
Perhaps the last great compliment for his wines came last year when Wine Spectator listed the family's last offering, a 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, as one of the top 10 wines of the year.
We sadly mourn the death of this iconic figure. The patriarch of American Wine. Every glass of wine you enjoy, no matter if from Napa or Tuscany, was somehow touched by the standards and traditions that Robert Mondavi brought to the table. We will be holding a tasting at The Cask Room on June 18th of the family wines of Robert Mondavi. We'll be taking a portion of the proceeds to gift to his Copia center for wine education. I can't think of a better way to celebrate this man than to drink his wine and donate money to the project that he was most passionate about.
posted by The Cask Room, Mike Kallay at
11:21 AM
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