Mondavi is the most popular family in California, thanks to Mondavi, California and in particular Napa Valley are known and greatly appreciated worldwide.

Everything starts with Cesare, italian guy from Sassoferrato (Le Marche region) who, in the 1943, decides to invest in California and after other business (like fruit package), he buys the already historical winery Charles Krug (in St. Helena). Cesare and his wife Rosa has 2 children: Peter and Robert directly involved in the business. When Cesare dies, the wife Rosa takes the lead but the internal fights comes up soon.

charles krug winery

Peter, the winemaker, has a conservative style but Robert, the marketing and sales men, intuits -from the very beginning- the importance to invest in the brand awareness. The situation is difficult, Rosa ends to support Peter and Robert has to leave the company! Peter –today, 99 years old- is still at Charles Krug. Robert, at that time, decides to open his own winery, Robert Mondavi winery in Oakville. They also have a legal cause as Robert fights to have recognized his own part of the business at Charles Krug; they get together after well 40 years in the 2005.

Robert starts to invest a lot in the marketing and becomes soon “the father of California”, making Napa popular worldwide. Robert dies in the 2008 but everybody is thankful to him and everybody reminds him as a tireless man even in the last period of his life. Not only, he had never promoted his own winery but the Californian wine industry as a whole. Nobody of Mondavi’s takes part of the famous Competition in Paris (1976) but they do not really care as long as Californian wines are successful. So, now, Peter and his sons Peter jr and Mark works at Charles Krug. Robert Mondavi winery is now part of the group Constellation Brand and partner (50%) of Opus One (see the article about Opus One here: http://chiaragiorleo.com/2013/11/21/opus-one-dot-opus-one-punto/)

…the 2 sons of Robert opens, subsequently, 2 other wineries: Michael calls it Michael Mondavi itself and he is still running it with his sons and daughters Isabel, Rob and Dina. Tim Mondavi invests recently in Continuum he is running together with the sister Marcy and 4 of his sons and daughters: Caressa (for the Hospitality), Chiara (who studies enology and takes care of the labels), Dante (who manages the cellar and the sales) and Carlo (for the sales as well). There is also Dominick who works in NYC as designer and from time to time helps with the labels. Sons and daughter of Marcy do something else.

This is not the only one family story made of internal fights unfortunately… and unfortunately seems to be a prerogative of Italian families! Everything has a price, this is the price to pay for the creativity and the energy of the Italians!