Robert Mondavi - the man who built a brand name for Napa Valley in California dies at the age of 94 at his Yountville home on May 16, 2008. His name became a brand in U.S. and he was one of the influential personalities of the past century in the wine industry. Probably thanks to him Californian wines gained it’s place on the world market and some fine wines even proved to be able to compete with French wines.

An Italian descendant, Mondavi grew up in Lodi, California where his father with his and his younger brother’s help had a successful fruit packing business. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in economics and business administration he returns in family business and at that time family already bought the Charles Krug winery. Under the Mondavi’s, The Charles Krug Winery became one of the most successful in Napa Valley.

But after a fight with his younger brother he leaves the family business decided to set up his own winery on borrowed money and he succeeds. He sets up ‘Robert Mondavi Winery’ and starts a passionate work on building a new brand in the wine industry and a wine-empire. He also was determined to make Napa Valley one of the world’s greatest wine regions and today we might say his task was accomplished. He was the first one to introduce the”blind tasting” to California and was brave and confident enough to put his wines against the top French producers and in 1976 his wines manage to accomplish high results at “Judgment of Paris”. Later, together with Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild, he opens “Opus One Winery” - the first French-American wine venture. Robert Mondavi was selected as the Decanter’s “Man of the Year” in 1989 and was nominated and inducted into the Vintners Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America. In the “Grand European Jury Wine Tasting” of 1997, the Robert Mondavi Chardonnay Reserve was ranked number one.

Robert Mondavi was also a great mecenat and donated large sums of money, but partly due to that fact and to miss-management he was forced to sell. The Mondavi brand name was acquired by the “Constellation Brands” for US$1.36 billion. Today’s association with the “Robert Mondavi” is no longer the brand for the fine wines. Mondavi himself criticized his sons for the business strategy that lead to loose of image with the introduction the of inexpensive Mondavi lines. He said, “We’ve got to get our image back, and that’s going to take time.

Robert Mondavi and his younger brother Peter (the one he had fight with) after 40 years made wine together that resulted in one single barrel (50/50), a blend of Cabernet named “Ancora Una Volta” (”Once Again”) which sold for $401,000 at the 2005 Napa Valley wine auction.

For the ones who wish to find out more about this fascinating person with a great impact on American wine industry we would recommend reading his autobiography “Harvests of Joy” which was published in 1998 and “House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty” by Julia Flynn Siler.