The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty

Only a writer with cloth ears would start a sentence with "As well, ..." Ms. Siler does so at least 50 times in this book. I cringed every time.

As well, she devotes far too much space to irrelevant minutiae. See what I mean?

This inside look at the destruction of a once close family and the storied wine business they built is well written and highly entertaining. Sibling rivalry between Robert Mondavi, and his far less talented younger brother Peter form the basis for all the tragedy that is to come.

Peter convinces their mother Rosa, who is chairman of the board and the largest stockholder and who opens board meetings in her home and then retires to the kitchen, that Robert must be driven from the company even though he had been the primary architect of their success.

Rosa goes one step farther and disinherits Robert, a daughter Helen, and all of their children, thereby assuring mutal animosity for future generations of Mondavi's. The stunningly poor decisions, many of them mean and petty by various family members,but primarily Rosa and Peter, eventually leads to complete family dysfunction. The next generation picks up where Rosa and Peter left off. The golden goose is eventually effectively destroyed. A very good read.

Wine, history, business, and scandal - there's something for most every taste in "The House of Mondavi", a spell binding chronicle of the Mondavi's rise from immigrant miners in the cold and barren north slopes of Minnesota to striking liquid gold in California's Napa Valley - building a name synonymous with bringing fine wine and a bit of class to America's tables. But Julia Flynn Siler's saga is no fairy tale, and is as far from a family puff piece as White Zin is from Bordeaux. The author pulls no punches and leaves no skeletons safely locked behind closet doors in a story as much about greed as it is about grapes. While the 80's TV mini-series "Falcon Crest" may have been loosely based on the Mondavi dynasty, the antics of the real Mondavi's make their soap opera counterparts about as scandalous as an episode of "Father Knows Best".

Siler's well-researched tale starts in 1906, when Robert Mondavi's parents, Cesare Mondavi and Rosa Grassi Mondavi, arrive from Italy, and loses little time in getting the Mondavi's to California - initially in the Central Valley town of Lodi before landing in Napa's St. Helena. It is a time when the world's great wine is made in France, when American tastes favor beer and whisky, and only the occasion wine - as long as it is syrupy-sweet and drank from the jug. But while the Mondavi family deftly navigated through eleven years of Prohibition and the Great Depression that followed, the family was torn asunder through massive egos, jealously, and greed, highlighted by the rift between brothers Robert and Peter, lasting an entire lifetime. The Mondavi's could have been the poster kids for dysfunction families, a schizophrenic group who seemed the loving and stereotypical close knit Italian family, while passing on sibling rivalry, consciously or unconsciously encouraged by otherwise doting parents, across multiple generations. Anyone who's ever enjoyed a bottle of Charles Krug or Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, or the value brand Woodbridge wines, or splurged for the classic Opus One will delight in the Valley's eccentric history and the Mondavi family's mark on it, from the early days of farmers sending bulk wine back east, to the love and peace and everything goes culture of the 60's and 70's, to today's cult wines and glitzy charity auctions. The rise from a private family business, to the most successful publicly traded Napa Valley brand, to the eventual acquisition by Constellation brands, is a terrific lesson management decisions both smart and horrific, and a primer on the pitfalls of working in a family-owner enterprise.

Siler sets an impressive table, not ducking the affairs and bitterness and petty disputes that separated families, while at the same time capturing the humor and the pathos that became, despite the obstacles, a great American success story. On one hand, it is a tribute to the marketing genius and perseverance of Robert Mondavi, but also a lesson on how unchecked commitment to a vision can harm those closest to you. In short, a riveting chapter of Americana well told - not to be missed.

Anyone that has enjoyed or still enjoys Mondavi wines and is interested in what was happening behind the scenes at the Robert Mondavi Winery over the years will probably thoroughly enjoy this book. It is very well written and provides the reader with a fascinating and informative story about wine production in Napa Valley over more than 50 years - focusing on the Mondavi Winery and how family politics and corporatization gradually had a huge effect on the business.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It gave an interesting insight into the power struggles within a family-owned wine business, the anguish of deciding to go public or not (IPO), and the importance of maintaining a relationship with parties critical to the success of such a buisness (suppliers, distributors, board members, etc.)

The author is to be commended for making this story so fascinating to read. What a treacherous family!

Despite being written in broken English, the outlines of the story are moderately interesting:

Young immigrants, Cesare and Rosa Mondavi, scrap around and end up in Lodi, California, dealing in fruit. Prohibition presents opportunity, since each household was permitted to make 200 gallons of wine a year.

The Mondavis do well shipping grapes East, and in 1943, they buy a formerly well known but decrepit winery, Charles Krug, in Napa Valley for $75,000.

It was the parents’ desire that their sons (but not their daughters) establish a wine business that would endure through generations.

The sons were superficially well-matched, Michael the impulsive salesman, committed to teaching Americans to drink good wine; Peter, the quiet tinkerer devoted to making better and better wine. In the event, though, they could not work in tandem and in the mid-‘60s Peter tried to squeeze Robert out of his inheritance. He failed, or did he?

Robert started the Robert Mondavi Winery, where he was credited with leading the revolution in America’s taste for boozing. And he had sons who seemed well suited to carrying on but were as antagonistic as their father and uncle.

For Julia Siler, this is strictly a family quarrel story and the rise of the Robert Mondavi Winery to become nearly a billion-dollar business is mostly an irritation. There isn’t a graph in the book, and statistics on production, income, sales volume, employment and acres controlled are scarce and scattered haphazardly throughout the chapters. There are precisely two uninformative sentences on labor, although the expansion of Mondavi coincided with the farm workers movement. We learn (in an endnote) that Krug, which remained under the control of Peter and his family, was unionized, which implies that Mondavi was not, but Siler never says.

Even after Robert Mondavi Corp. went public in 1994 and information becomes more easily available, Siler barely uses it. She is not indifferent to facts; she just has no idea about which are significant. We learn the street addresses of several law firms that advised various Mondavis, for example, and what fabrics Mondavian brides wore.

Within 10 years of tapping Wall Street’s keg of dollars, Robert and his family are out, their departure not sweetened by douceurs of $60 million and up each, since the hopes of Rosa and Cesare are thwarted — except over at Krug where Peter and his family have kept the family interest intact. But Siler has little interest in that side of the family.

I seldom award one star to a book unless it is written by a crackpot. Siler is not that, but “The House of Mondavi” is so badly organized and badly written that it is not worth anyone’s time.

This book explores the dynasty of the Mondavi family and explains the pitfalls and problems of doing business with your family.

An excellent work. I grew up in this area, including the Napa area and the book brings back many memories of the growth of the wineries, Charles Krug, Mondavi and other wineries. I've recommended it to many of my friends, who, also have some familiarity with the development of the wine industry in Northern California. Highly recommend it. Well written

Anyone that is big into Wine and has been to Napa knows Mondavi Winery is one of the biggest player in the Valley. It was very interesting to read how the winery came about and the split up of the family....Charles Krug winery.