The House of Mondavi

The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty

By: Julia Flynn Siler

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Set in California's lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, The House of Mondavi is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corporation's 21st-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama.

The blood feuds are as spectacular as the business triumphs. Cesare's sons, Robert and Peter, literally came to blows in the 1960s during a dispute touched off by the purchase of a mink coat, resulting in Robert's exile from the family - and his subsequent founding of a winery that would set off a revolution in American winemaking. Robert's sons, Michael and Timothy, as passionate in their own ways as their visionary father, waged battles with each other for control of the company before Michael's expansive ambitions ultimately led to a board coup and the sale of the business to an international conglomerate.

A meticulously reported narrative based on thousands of hours of interviews, The House of Mondavi is bound to become a classic.

©2007 Julia Flynn Siler (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

" The House of Mondavi's cast rivals that of the 1980s wine-country melodrama Falcon Crest, with episodes of sex, violence, greed, envy, nepotism, and betrayal...[and] a King Lear-like storyline." ( Wine Spectator Online)

Good story about Napa and wine

This book is a rich history of the Mondavi family and the impact they had on the wine industry. The detail is extensive. It is clear a good deal of research went into the development of this story. It ties ambition, greed, family, and business together to illustrate the evolution of the wine industry in Napa. Not always a happy tale, I'll warn you.

Great History and Very Informative

If you could sum up The House of Mondavi in three words, what would they be?

Informative, Surprising, Interesting

What did you like best about this story?

The struggles that the Mondavi family endured, in order to create the wine empire that exist today.

Have you listened to any of Alan Sklar’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

He's excellent! I love his performance, it almost feels as if my grandfather is reading me a bedtime story.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

The real life soap opera of the most powerful wine family in Napa Valley.

Any additional comments?

One negative aspect of this book, is that there are some inaccuracies in the story portrayed here. I am a current employee of the Mondavi family and the author of this book never interviewed Peter Mondavi's side of the family when writing this book. Some of the stories are fabricated or completely false; especially the incident with Mark Mondavi and his employees picketing, which actually never happened (as I spoke to this side of the family about these accounts).

Wonderful

Loved it! Narrator was amazing and the story was enthralling. I couldn't stop listening to it. Great read if you're industry or not.

A very interesting informative book Mondavis

What made the experience of listening to The House of Mondavi the most enjoyable?

It is very well researched and written

What was one of the most memorable moments of The House of Mondavi?

The court decision in the lawsuit between Robert and the rest of the family

Any additional comments?

I was a shareholder in the company until it was sold and there were a lot of things that only now make sense to me.

LESS EXCITING THAN WATCHING GRAPES GROW

I lived about 5 miles from the Napa Valley for many years and loved to tour the many wineries in the area. It's one of the most beautiful and agriculturally unique places in the US. I was sure this would be a fabulous story of the people who set out to compete with countries like France and Germany, wine makers for many centuries. However, this story is as flat as last night's champagne, with mind-numbing minutiae that requires a bottle of cheap wine to get through. The Mondavis were an incredibly boring! The "blood feud" is nothing more than the normal conflicts that any family has - even a family without money and/or the legacy of an iconic winery. The author spends the entire book trying make up conflict. She'd wastes time describing a minor person's wedding dress rather than give some indepth character development. Family attorney - and former San Francisco mayor - Joseph L. Alioto's personal foibles (about which the author goes into much detail) overshadows everything done by the whole Mondavi clan put together. My own research failed to find anything worth knowing on this family other than it did what was expected of them as world-class vintners. Brother Timothy, a member of the Christian Brothers, who maintained a winery right down the road from the Mondavis, lived a more exciting life than these people. The "four generations" live at the same time on the same land doing the same things. No mavericks, no scandals, no black sheep. The big legal battle ends predictably in a whimper rather than a bang. The only "fun fact" is that second-generation Robert Mondavi left the family's business to start the first post-Prohibition winery. This whole story could have been told in 30 minutes. Use your money to buy a 6-pack of Dos Equiis and read quotes from "The Most Interesting Man In The World".

Disorganized and way too long

I have only listened to the first six hours but have given up. I can't imagine what 10 more hours would be about. The most interesting thing about the Mondavi story is the legal battle between members of the family and that's over now. The author has done a lot of research, and it supposedly is written from earliest to latest times, but it skips around so much it's hard to keep track of when and where you are in the story. There is also too much unrelated minutiae (do we really need to know what one of the lawyers wore on stage when he performed with his rock band?). Add to this, the reader's pompous tone and his mis-pronunciations make this book barely tolerable. He correctly pronounced the last name Mon-day-vi in the beginning because, according to the author, that's the way the family pronounced their name. After Robert formed his own winery and broke away from his brother and mother, he started pronouncing his surname Mon-dah-vi, and now this reader started
pronouncing every family member's name as Mon-dah-vi. I don't remember anything saying they all decided on this new pronunciation. Especially egregious, is his mis-pronouncing the name of the prominent town, St. Helena. As a former resident, you couldn't be anywhere in the Napa Valley and not know that the town name is pronounced Saint Hel-eena. All in all, I'm sorry we bought this book.

Such Promise

This book showed great promise, but the reader was so poor that I couldn't finish it. A reader should at least know how to pronounce the crucial place names, as well as the state of Oregon.

Wine or whine

Anyone interested in the wine industry would find this book interesting. However, the length at which the author goes on and on at times is tedious at best and leaves the listener wondering why certain details made it into the book. I was questioning the editing quite often. It is clear the author did a tremendous amount of research in writing this book and seems to be determined to fit in everything she could just so her research efforts didn't got to waste. Additionally, the book is written chronologically but still manages to skip around through time which breaks up the fluidity that should accompany a book dealing with fine wine production.