A Great Story About a Great Wine Man

Posted by Tom Wark on Oct 29, 2014

I used to joke with a former colleague at a wine PR firm that the first one of us to get their visage depicted in a line drawing in the Wall Street Journal wins—triggering an automatic dinner at the restaurant of our choice.

However, after reading this absolutely wonderful and inspiring story about Peter Mondavi, Sr. celebrating 100 years of age, I think it’s pretty clear that the person who has this kind of article written about them wins the game—the BIG GAME.

A couple things about this wonderful story stand out. The first is that the reporter from the Saint Helena Star that wrote the store, John Intardanato, included nothing along the lines of “Mr. Mondavi attributes his long life to Blah, Blah, Blah”. Thank you Mr. Intardonato for not exposing us one more time to that cliché.

Equally pleasing is the paragraph on Mondavi’s family and their involvement in the wine business:

” ‘Marc was always interested in the winery,’ Mondavi said, ‘Peter (Jr.) took a little while to decide. But they work very well together. And Marc’s daughter, Angelina, is a top-notch winemaker now,’ he added with pride. ‘She is working at Hundred Acres Winery, and Alycia and Riana both work here.’ Marc’s other daughter, Giovanna (Gigi), and Peter Jr.’s two children, Lia and Lucio, are still in college. ‘We all went through some tough times, but whatever we have, we all worked for.’ “

You read this and you can nearly touch and feel the pride.

I’ve only met Mr. Mondavi once, some years ago at a Valley event. I was introduced to him for no other reason than I was standing nearby the person he really wanted to talk to. He stopped, flashed a smile, took my hand to shake, and asked about me. It made me feel good.

I adore these kinds of articles and I hope you’ll take the time to read it. It’s well written, interesting and enlightening.