Set in California’s lush Napa Valley, The House of Mondavi is a tale of visionary genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal.
From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corp.’s 21st century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life the places and people in this riveting family drama.
The blood feuds are as spectacular as the business triumphs. In the 1960s, Cesare’s sons Robert and Peter, who together ran their family’s Charles Krug winery, literally came to blows during a dispute touched off by the purchase of a mink coat. Robert’s subsequent exile resulted in his founding the Robert Mondavi Corporation—and setting off a revolution in American winemaking.
At times as impetuous as their visionary father Robert, Michael and Timothy for decades battled for control of the Robert Mondavi Corp. Michael’s expansive ambitions eventually led to a board coup and a takeover by an international conglomerate, run by another American wine dynasty.
A meticulously reported narrative based on more than five hundred hours of interviews, The House of Mondavi is bound to become a classic of narrative nonfiction.