BERKELEY, Calif. — Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died Friday. He was 94.
Mondavi died peacefully at his Napa Valley home in Yount-ville, Robert Mondavi Winery spokeswoman Mia Malm said.
"It is hard to imagine anyone having more of a lasting impact on California's $20 billion-a-year wine industry than Robert Mondavi," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. Mondavi, said the governor, was "a tireless entrepreneur who transformed how the world felt about California wine, and an unforgettable personality to everyone who knew him."
Mondavi was a winemaking veteran in 1966 when he opened the winery that would help turn the Napa Valley into a world center of the industry. Clashes with a brother that included a fistfight led him to break from the family business to carry out his ambitious plans with borrowed money.
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California then was primarily known for cheap jug wines. But he set out to change that, championing use of cold fermentation, stainless-steel tanks and French oak barrels, all com-monplace in the industry today. He introduced blind tastings in Napa Valley, putting his wines up against French vintages.
His confidence was rewarded in 1976 when California wines beat some well-known French vintages in the tasting known as the Judgment of Paris.
"He had the single greatest influence in this country with respect to high quality wine and its place at the table," wine critic Robert Parker wrote in a chat-room posting on his Web site Friday. He called Mondavi "a legendary pathfinder ... and I feel so privileged to have known him. ... (It's) a sad day but also one to pay homage to his enormous contributions."
Always convinced that California wines could compete with the European greats, Mondavi engaged in the first Franco-American wine venture when he formed a limited partnership with the legendary French vintner Baron Philippe de Rothschild to grow and make the ultra-premium Opus One at Oakville. The venture's first vintage was in 1979.
The success of the Mondavi winery allowed him to donate tens of millions of dollars to charity, but a wine glut and intense competition gradually cost his family control of the business. In 2004, the company accepted a buyout worth $1.3 billion from Fairport, N.Y.-based Constellation Brands.
Mondavi was an enthusiastic ambassador for wine and traveled the world into his 90s promoting the benefits of its moderate consumption.
"He had an amazing life," said Robert Koch, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Wine Institute. "He was a major driving force and an incredible promoter for California wine and the Napa Valley."
Born in Virginia, Minn., Mondavi earned an economics degree from Stanford University in the 1930s and went to work at the Charles Krug Winery, which his Italian-born parents had bought after moving to California from Minnesota.
He married his high-school sweetheart, Marjorie Declusin, in 1937, and they had three children, Michael, Marcia and Tim.
For 20 years, the winery was a family business. But Robert clashed frequently with his younger brother, Peter, who had a more conservative approach to the business. According to Robert Mondavi's autobiography "Harvests of Joy," matters came to a head with a November 1965 fistfight.
"When it was all over, there were no apologies and no handshake," wrote Robert Mondavi.
