Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeRobert Mondavi as Mentor: Stories of People he Inspired
by Jim Gordon
A week after the death of Robert Mondavi the waves of sympathy for the family, and appreciation of Bob’s countless contributions to wine continue to swirl around the Napa Valley, the wine world and the Internet.
At a seminar in St. Helena Wednesday sponsored by French barrel maker Taransaud, British wine merchant Anthony Hanson, a Master of Wine, author and Christie’s auction house agent, was moderator. He dedicated the day-long session to Robert Mondavi. Looking around the room, I could see several winemakers who worked directly for Mondavi, particularly Zelma Long, who was a speaker. She took over as Mondavi winemaker in the 1970s and went on to an illustrious career heading up Simi Winery in Sonoma County and in the past several years as a winemaking consultant in California and wine entrepreneur in South Africa. Many others in the crowd were also directly or indirectly connected to Robert Mondavi.
I don’t think enough has been said yet about Mondavi’s power to educate and encourage people in the wine industry. People like Zelma who worked directly for him, and another generation that now works for the people who trained at his winery. It’s well known that he converted hundreds if not thousands of retailers, distributor sales people and restaurateurs to an appreciation of Napa and California wines. Living here in Napa Valley it’s also apparent that the people who worked for him respected, were inspired by and in many cases loved him.
Tributes from people like these are being posted on the Napa Valley Vintners website, and are worth reading through.
I had spoken with Mondavi, interviewed him and followed his career for 25 years. Several years ago, after he was ostensibly retired but before his company was sold to Constellation, I did a lengthy one-on-one interview with him. I always found him charismatic and that day was no exception. He spoke with infectious enthusiasm about all the great things that were still to come for Robert Mondavi wines and for wine in general.
Obviously I was not the only one who thought he was someone special, someone to listen to, to gain inspiration from, to follow wherever he was going. Possibly no one will ever fill his shoes as a singular leader of the wine industry. I’d love to hear anyone’s stories about how Robert Mondavi influenced their lives.
Filed under: Industry Issues, Winemaking
2 Comments
2 Responses to “Robert Mondavi as Mentor: Stories of People he Inspired”
Please Wait
May 25th, 2008 at 4:34:30 PM
Genius often skips a generation. We see it in Europe on a regular basis. We also see the ones that become amazing in the wine world were sent to find another life. They didn’t start out with a passion for wine. Jean-Michel Cazes, Chateau Lynch Bages and Michel Lynch etc, worked for IBM (he was the only person in Pauillac with an nternet connection in 1997-we did a dial-up chat with the fledgling online wine world). He was called home to Chateau Lynch-Bages. Anthony Barton’s Irish uncle called him from the island to the family’s Chateau Leoville-Barton and it is now in an amazing league of its own. Barone Francesco Ricasoli, a photographer, was called home to Brolio, turned around an unfortunate Seagram moment, and took on the Chianti Classico that his great+ uncle had created. Cazes is an inheritor of Lynch-Bages and a life (his dad was mayor of Pauillac). Ricasoli is the inheritor of Galileo and the world, as we know it. It takes genius. And I think Robert Mondavi had genius. Robert Mondavi is the icon of Napa Valley’s first generation. The Napa wine world may not have another Robert but perhaps they will have another Mondavi. Remember, he was in his 50s when he “came on the scene.” And now there is Dina, his granddaughter. I knew her as a child. She is invisible in the wine world. But I think she has the Mondavi spirit, the Mondavi genius. But, she has no chateau or castle to return to. Nor do many of the children and grandchildren of wine’s great risk-takers who shared a meal in the ’60s and ‘70s with Robert Mondavi. And that, my friends, is the reason why the New World should shudder, not just be sad, about the death of an icon, Robert Mondavi.
May 28th, 2008 at 10:18:24 AM
Hey Jim–
I spent a Summer working in Oakville and met Robert Mondavi on quite a few occasions. I felt his influence in everything we did, especially in his tremendous focus on education. I did a little write-up on my own blog about it last week, I think it’s a pretty nice story:
http://tinyurl.com/6b2glw