Media Room

The House of Mondavi
 The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty
By
Julia Flynn Siler

A Conversation with the Author

Q. What is your book about?
A. It’s an epic tale of four generations of the Mondavi family, set in California’s lush wine country. The story spans a century, beginning with Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi’s arrival on Ellis Island in 1906 and ending with a twenty-first-century boardroom coup over control of the wine empire that Cesare’s eldest son, Robert, created. The book is a portrait of Napa Valley, America’s most glamorous wine region, told through this talented and visionary family, as well as a case study on the unique challenges family-owned businesses must navigate successfully to survive.
Q. What’s important about Robert Mondavi?
A. During the culinary dark ages of TV dinners and space food, Robert Mondavi set out to turn America into a nation of wine drinkers by spreading the word that it was a civilizing beverage that had been embraced throughout the centuries. Along with Julia Child and Alice Waters, Robert Mondavi helped lead America’s culinary revolution by tirelessly preaching that Napa Valley wines were just as good as those from such storied wine regions as Bordeaux.
Q. How does Robert Mondavi’s family figure into the story?
A. Behind the story of Robert Mondavi’s business triumph is a family tragedy. After clashing with his family at the Charles Krug winery, Robert set off on his own and sued his mother, brother, and one of his sisters for his share of the family fortune. The case was tried in 1976 and became famous in California for its flamboyant lawyers – including former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto – and its final judgment in Robert’s favor. Rosa, the family matriarch, died in the middle of the trial. Robert got the share of the fortune he was after, but the case ended up tearing apart his family. His immediate family had supported him throughout the trial, but Robert’ and Marjorie’s marriage broke up not long after because of his long-standing affair with Margrit Biever, a winery employee. Robert’s divorce had lasting repercussions in the family dynamics, since his children did not get along well with Margrit for many years.

Robert hoped his sons would succeed him in the business, but their personalities and talents made that impossible. The family wine dynasty that Robert hoped to leave behind collapsed.
Q. Did the Mondavis cooperate with this book? Was it authorized?
A. Most of the Mondavis agreed to allow me to interview them, but it is not an authorized book. I began this project in 2004, when the San Francisco Chronicle’s business section reported that Michael Mondavi had stepped down as chairman of the Robert Mondavi Corp. That set me off on my search for an answer. The company had recently hired a new head of public relations whose job was to fend off such questions. That made me even more curious. So for the next four months, I interviewed everyone who would talk to me – former employees, members of the extended Mondavi family, Wall Street analysts, investors, even a therapist who had counseled the family over the years. This resulted in a front page story for The Wall Street Journal. By the time I had finished my reporting for the book which grew out of this story I had conducted over five hundred hours of interviews.
Q. So how did you convince the key players to talk to you?
A.

For much of the first year of my research for this book, the board members and the family held out against talking with me, in part because they were upset by the critical nature of my story that ran in The Wall Street Journal in 2004, and also because they were fighting shareholder lawsuits that were filed around the time of the takeover. Because of these suits, they didn’t want to complicate matters further by speaking for the record to a journalist who could, at least theoretically, be subpoenaed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Once it seemed likely the suits would be settled, a key player in the drama, Ted Hall, who had been brought in by the board to replace Michael Mondavi as the company’s new chairman, decided to grant me a series of very lengthy interviews. After Ted Hall shared his thoughts with me, other members of the board followed suit. Ultimately the Mondavi family decided it was in their best interest to share their perspectives as well.
Q. How did you balance these competing perspectives?
A.

I see my job as the person who accurately and fairly relates all the different perspectives. I don’t see my role as coming down on one side or the other and casting one character as the villain and others as heroes. The people I write about in this book are complex and the story, ultimately, is a tragedy about human fallibility and hubris. Although I finished the project feeling enormous admiration for Robert Mondavi, I also consider his life as a cautionary tale about the risks of sacrificing family to career ambitions. I see it also as a quintessential story of an immigrant family which was torn apart by the first-generation American son, who outclasses and humiliates them in court and in the business world. Ultimately, that son takes a fall, leaving the favored younger son standing.

Q. What can people who work or study family businesses learn from this book?
A. he Harvard Business School has written five business case studies on the Robert Mondavi Corp. over the years, focusing on its international expansion, its decision to go public, and how difficult it can be for an agricultural business—subject to the vagaries of the weather and poor crops— to satisfy Wall Street’s demands. What the case studies ignored was the way in which strong emotions and deeply-rooted family conflicts can play out in business decisions. These elements sabotaged Robert’s efforts at succession planning and led to a series of poor choices on the family’s part after the company had its IPO in 1993. The lesson to draw from the story of the Mondavis is that family and business can be a combustible mix.
Q. Why do you subtitle it “The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty?” Isn’t the Peter Mondavi side of the family still selling its wine from the Charles Krug winery? And aren’t Tim and other members of Robert’s branch starting up again?
A. The definition of a family business dynasty is an enterprise controlled by a single family for three or more generations. While Peter Mondavi’s side of the family won the Charles Krug winery in the court case that pit Peter and his mother against Robert, it was Robert’s side of the family that created the much larger and more successful Mondavi Winery, which at its height spanned five continents. The subtitle refers to the rise and fall of Robert’s line of the dynasty, beginning with him, then his sons Michael and Timothy, and finally, ending with the attempts to bring the next generation of Mondavis – namely, Michael’s son Rob and Timothy’s children – into the business. The book ends in 2005, before Timothy and other members of the family had announced the creation of their new wine: “Continuum.” Since then, Robert’s two sons—Michael and Timothy—have both been working hard to reinvent themselves.