|
| 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: $5.01
You Save: $9.99 (67%)
New (40) Used (27) Collectible (2) from $5.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 9632
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
Condition: Domestic deliveries shipped with a delivery confirmation. The text pages are free of writing. Ink mark on front end page. There is some wear on the cover and edges. m3
|
| Customer Reviews:
 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.
Family Infighting, Affairs, Bad Decisions, and the Loss of a Business September 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have read many biography books and many business books but I haven't read many that combine these two genres into one. "House of Mondavi" is one such book. It covers the foundation of the Mondavi's in the wine business; the decision by Robert to break away and start his own company; the bitter fight between Peter and Robert over the Mondavi name; the personal lives of the men in the family; and the ultimate loss of the winery after going public.
I don't consume very much wine but even a non- connoisseur like me knows the Mondavi name. The name is synonymous with wine, and when I heard about this book, I was anxious to read it. I knew about the Mondavi's but I was generally unaware of the family saga so often associated with the Mondavi name. I did not know about the family feuds, the endless fighting, the legal battles, etc., that had plagued the Mondavi family for so many years. I also did not know that the Mondavi family no longer controlled the Robert Mondavi Winery. These and many other interesting facts are uncovered in this book, and they make it a definite page- turner.
When I first decided to read this volume, I was interested in two key points: First, I wanted to know how the family got into the wine business and what seeds were planted that led to the family squabbles. Second, I wanted to know what caused the company to fall from grace. From reading this book, I discovered when the Mondavi family got into the business and I found out all I ever wanted to know about the legal fight between Peter and Robert. I also found out many other things along the way; like the tendency of the Mondavi men to let their eyes wander; the broken families; the secret affairs; the decision to become a stock company; and the slow demise of the business thanks to the inability of Michael and Timothy (Robert's sons) to run the company.
One thing I like about this book is that it doesn't waste time with unimportant details. It jumps right into the action in the first chapter, talking about Cesare Mondavi and his migration to the United States. His time living and working in Minnesota are not that significant to the book's outcome, so it switches quickly to the warm California sun and the decision by Cesare and wife Rosa to enter the wine- making business. Then, in Part II, the book moves quickly to the fighting between Peter and Robert for control of the Mondavi name, and it remains focused on this subject for the duration of the reading. I like that Julia Siler doesn't waste the reader's time talking about insignificant life events in the early years. The book is mostly about the family tensions and the ultimate loss of the winery, so it makes sense that it devotes most of its pages to these topics.
This book has a certain tragic feel to it, and it's something I knew was coming based on the book's title. And as I read more and more about the background of the Mondavi's and the events that led to the ultimate takeover, I felt like I was reading scenes from a tragic novel. Cesare Mondavi labored long and hard to build his business and he and his wife fully expected Peter and Robert to run the company, and then later pass it on to their own sons. Never would Cesare have predicted what happened. His two sons could not agree on much and the tensions continued to the point that Robert broke from the ranks to found his own business. He and Peter should have been able to resolve their differences, but they seem to have one problem after another. It really is sad to think that they lost everything their father had built for them all because of some simple disagreements and the lack of any effort to compromise.
This book offers meticulous research to back its story. Julia Siler includes notes, bibliography, sources, and an index along with two sections of black and white photos. She spent a great deal of time finding out facts about the Mondavi family, both personal and business, and she includes a little bit of everything in this book. She talks about the business decisions that led to the collapse of the business as well as the numerous affairs that led all of the Modavi men (except for Cesare) to make several appearances in courts of law, either for the purpose of obtaining a divorce or for the purpose of working out child custody issues.
Overall, House of Mondavi is a very good book that will be enjoyed by anyone with either an interest in wine or an interest in family business biographies. There are lessons to be learned in this book, and it serves as a reminder that any business- even a family business that seems safe and secure- can falter and even collapse under pressure. The Mondavi winery was lost for several reasons, but at the core of the issues was the family feud between Robert and Peter. It is a tragic case of bruised egos and bad decisions and it shows what can happen when personal lives get too intertwined with the realities of the business world.
 More than I wanted to know September 16, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
Book is a good insight of what happens in growing a family business with disparate personalities. Also good overview of wine industry. Absolutely too much detail and minutiae...who cares what shade of orange taffeta dress the bride wore, or how the canapes tasted!
Interesting read August 31, 2007
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is part about the wine industry and the development of the Napa Valley, and part about family business and ego. It is an interesting study of of the fact that because you are born into a family does not make you smart enough to run the business. The story could have read much faster with alot more interest if much of the detail was left out. There were hugh amounts of detail relating to four generations of families, that did not really benefit the story but mearly displayed how much research the author had done.
A well-researched volume that reads like a fiction August 27, 2007
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
I don't read a lot of non-fictions in general but this treatment of the Mondavi family and corporation history is such an engaging read. Julia Flynn Siler writes with fluidity that helps the reader navigate this complicated piece of history with ease. I used to wander through Napa Valley tasting wines and have associated the town as a posh vacation spot. It was very interesting for me to read about how the town started with humble vinters and remains largely conservative saved for the marketing efforts initiated by the Mondavi family to elevate the town's image to a high-end destination. I will visit Napa again in the near future, now with new knowledge and appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes. Who knows, maybe I'll even stop by the Court House.
|
|
|
| |
