I remember well when I first met Robert Mondavi, it was at my French restaurant in Hollywood called Au Petit Café. He was visiting all the best restaurants in Los Angeles to promote his own wine from his newly formed Robert Mondavi Winery, after an unhappy break-up from the family business.
It was difficult to tell him that I could not put his wine on my list, due to it being a French restaurant, which had an exclusively French wine list with all the best Grand Cru and other top French vintages; and that is what my customers expected. I did however, offer to change my cooking wine and give him that business; you must remember at this point California wine was not recognized as fine wine—and in the future he changed all of this. He did not accept my offer and left very disappointed.
Above: AP Photo (originally provided by Departures Magazine)
I sold his wine years later, including Opus One in my wine bar called Bouchon, in Brentwood CA, where we offered 100 wines by the glass and had many selections of California and other New World wines. I was invited to attended some wine functions at the winery and went on several occasions.
When Robert Mondavi and Baron Phillippe de Rothschild formed a limited partnership to bring out Opus One in 1979, Miklos Dora, then head of world-wide promotion for Mouton Rothschild and I discussed how it might go over with such a large price tag for a wine grown in California. The reality is, It became a big success due in no small part to Robert Mondavi’s unfailing persistence.
He was indeed, a major influence in the California wine industry and my sympathetic thoughts go out to his family and friends.
