Ernest Gallo toasts winemaker Robert Mondavi upon Mondavi's 90th birthday in 2003.
Robert Mondavi, the pioneering Napa Valley vintner whose drive and salesmanship revolutionized the way the world thought about California wine, died at his Yountville, Calif., home, a spokeswoman for the Robert Mondavi Winery said. He was 94.
The son of an Italian-born grape wholesaler from the Central Valley, Mondavi was, at the end of his life, one of the best-known figures in American viticulture.
In 1936, with a bachelor's degree in economics, some chemistry classes and a senior-year tutorial from a UC Berkeley enologist as his formal training, Mondavi joined the staff of Sunnyhill (now Merryvale) winery.
In 1943, when the distinguished Charles Krug Winery fell on hard times. Mondavi persuaded his father to buy and his father agreed on the condition that Robert and his younger brother Peter jointly run it. The brothers bickered at a family gathering in 1965 and Peter accused Robert of overspending on travel and promotion, then of taking money from the family business. The fight sundered the family, which voted to put Robert Mondavi on six months' paid leave from his winery duties. He hired his own lawyer, and the ensuing legal tangle lasted for years. It took two decades for the brothers to begin speaking. Their mother, who sided with Peter, did not live to see them reconcile.
In 1965, at 52, Robert Mondavi bought a well-situated vineyard in Oakville, at the valley's southern end. The Robert Mondavi Winery broke ground in 1966 as Napa Valley's first major new winery since Prohibition.
Mondavi is survived by his children, Michael, Marcia and Timothy; nine grandchildren; and his brother, Peter. He drank two glasses of wine at lunch and split a bottle each night with his wife, Margrit, who also survives him.
