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| The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty | 
 enlarge | Author: Julia Flynn Siler
Publisher: Gotham
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $4.39
You Save: $10.61 (71%)
New (40) Used (27) Collectible (2) from $4.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 8362
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 1592403670
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.766320092273
EAN: 9781592403677
ASIN: 1592403670
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Salute! June 20, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Beautifully written and masterfully researched, Flynn Siler tells the inside story of one of America's most influential families. The Mondavis reinvented the way we eat and drink in this country. This book chronicles that amazing achievement and celebrates the visionaries who made it happen. But it's also a cautionary tale of how difficult it is to maintain such magic once the values of Wall Street get involved. Salute to Flynn Siler for such tremendous storytelling and journalism!
An extraordinary comeback, followed by a staggering comedown September 27, 2007
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
As the author of Extraordinary Comebacks, I collect comeback stories. Rarely have I seen such a powerful one, followed by such a plummeting (albeit cushioned by millions) comedown.
Seems no Italian opera yet written could rival the raw emotion, collusion, betrayal, exultation and devastation of the real life story of winemaker Robert Mondavi and his family.
Born to immigrants (1913), his father, Cesare, founded a vineyard and wine business. It was Cesare's dream that it be a family business, and in name and function it was. But in spirit? Young Robert, and his siblings all worked in the business, but feuds abounded. In his mid-fifties, in a fateful incident, he came to blows with his younger brother, Peter. His mother sided with Peter. It would prove costly: not long after, the patriarch died, and Robert was booted out of his own company. When he told his mother he was starting his own company and would use the original Italian pronunciation of the family name (Mon DAH vee), she slapped his face, and his eyes filled with tears.
So at a time many begin to contemplate retirement, Robert, age 52, with no savings, just the dream of (yet another) family business, started all over (1965), building the Robert Mondavi Winery. He was able to borrow $200,000 from Napa Valley winegrowers as a result of the good name he (and his father) built up over the years. His two sons, Michael and Timothy, and daughter, Marcia, worked alongside him, but again, feuds sparked, simmered and raged. Marcia was smart; she moved to New York to sell the wines and stay out of the daily contretemps; the brothers duked it out, metaphorically it must be added, back home. Michael was for expansion, Timothy wanted to make high-end, select wines. The feud would never be resolved.
Meanwhile, Robert tried to reconcile with his mother, but after a violent argument (in Italian) she fell off her chair, and was helped into bed. She told a friend "I have two sons. One has short legs and he is a saint (Peter). One has longer legs and he is a devil (Robert)." A few days later, she died of heart failure (July 4, 1976).
Besides business matters, affairs of the heart --- infidelity, adultery and ultimately divorce(s) --- shook the terra firma under the clan. Patriarch Robert left his wife of many years, Marjorie, and mother of his children to court and wed Margrit Biever. His first wife would die of alcoholism; others maintained she died of a broken heart. Son Timothy followed in his footsteps, divorcing his first wife while courting and eventually wedding an employee, Holly Peterson, though counseled to remain faithful by his father and other family members. They, too, would later divorce.
Even though family life, and business life were so intertwined among the Mondavi's, the family might have weathered these stresses, even Robert's disinheritance of his own children in favor of philanthropic endeavors ("you've got enough") but the beginning of the end occurred when the firm sold shares to the public (1993). For the first time, non-family members became company managers. At the same time, Robert made a series of huge philanthropic gifts (University of California, late 1990s, $35 million) that almost led him to bankruptcy when his stock plunged to a eight-year low of $18.53 (March, 2003).
Though now under corporate governance, Michael and Timothy kept the conceptual wars going, making investors nervous. While the company had good years, and in fact, expanded, a fact which Michael was not given full credit for, its up and down financial condition deteriorated. Constellation Brands from the Finger Lakes, NY area, seized on the opportunity to launch a hostile takeover for $1.36 billion (2004).
Each of the Mondavis emerged from the harrowing loss of its namesake company with many millions, but resentments, even hatreds, for the sins of the past lingered. While bearing deep scars, Timothy and Marcia reconciled with their father, and so did brother, Peter, at least in public, but eldest son Michael by and large kept his distance, counseled by a therapist to minimize interaction. And so the curtain rang down on a family dream that devoured the family it was supposed to exult.
It is often said that the Mondavis were a model for the soap opera Falcon Crest from the 1980s. A seeming contradiction, Robert Mondavi's autobiography was titled Harvests of Joy (1998) but this later volume (2007) by Julia Flynn Siler chronicles the lives of the Mondavis as the culmination of endless hours of research and original interviews, and summarizes it all as the "rise and fall."
Indeed.
Insightful, instructive.....sobering.
Monumental accomplishment. Hats off to author Siler.
Well-researched story of this wonderful family, July 2, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Julie Flynn Siler has written a serious, well-researched story of this wonderful family who have made incredible contributions to the prominence of Napa Valley wines.
The company went public in the early 90's for sound reasons. However, the pressures and disciplines of being a public company changed during the following decade, and the family was not able to adjust its operational and governance disciplines to the dramatic changes. As one of many participants on the board of the company during that decade, I can say that the author has portrayed events leading to the sale of the company accurately and dispassionately.
This great family is now off on two separate new wine ventures which will surely be successful.
Entralling Tale of Four Generations of the Mondavi Family July 3, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
A terrific story with an almost biblical feel. Sibling rivalry, generational friction, love, infidelity, modern business, success, craftmanship, family pride, hubris and ambition all intersect in the picturesque Napa Valley. Despite its almost 400 page length, the book is a quick, exciting read. You'll never open a bottle of wine from Napa Valley without thinking about the story of the valley's first family.
The inside scoop July 20, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Our entire family enjoys good wine. Working in the food business for many decades, we've had several opportunities for private tours at Robert Mondavi and Opus One in Napa Valley, and Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux as well as many, many other wineries. All of the tours were enlightening, but I never gained such insight into the Mondavi empire until I read this great book. Understanding the personalities of the players involved from the first generation forward gave me a clear picture of the rise and fall of this remarkable family business. For those who love to travel and visit the wine regions of the world, you too will enjoy The House of Mondavi.
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