![]() "The goal today is to be the preeminent fine-wine company on a global basis." I essentially got my father and my brother to agree we had to change the vision," he said. "We had to figure out a challenging but realizable strategic goal to take us to the next level and to re- energize the creative spirit. With those goals accomplished, "the creativity, the drive and the passion of the business, top to bottom, started to wane slightly," Michael said. "Done and done," as his father might say. "What I found was that, by the late 1980's, we had essentially accomplished our vision to create wines that belonged in the company of the best and to market them worldwide," said Michael. But by 1990, when the younger Mondavis moved into senior management positions, there was a dismaying sense of "been there, done that." ![]() The vision carried the winery through harvests good and bad and the never-ending struggle for working capital. ![]() "Had we tried to do it in France or Italy, we would never have been accepted - by the wine trade, the vendors or the media." Michael Mondavi, the eldest son at 56, and the winery's president and chief executive. "My father gave us the vision, but doing it here, since no one had ever done it, gave us the opportunity," said R. In conversations with any of them, however, a common theme always emerges - that is, an immense sense of gratitude that they were born in the United States, where the lack of several centuries of heritage and history did not stand in the way of building one of the world's finest wineries. The Mondavis have strong but strikingly different personalities, so much so that Robert once brought in a therapist to sort out the familial and business issues dividing him from Michael, Timothy and their sister, Marcia, who is no longer active in the winery. ![]() As one of the few publicly held wineries, however, Mondavi will also have to answer to a higher authority: the stockholder, who is looking to the new brands to enhance share value. The wines themselves have been well received, by reviewers and consumers alike. But it is instructive to examine the underlying strategy behind the Mondavis' diversification abroad and the cultural and managerial issues they have faced. It is too early to tell if the brands created in France, Italy and Chile will enjoy similar success, and there have, in fact, been some initial missteps. The immediate success of those operations prompted further extensions, through both acquisitions and the creation of new, related brands in the 1980's and early 1990's. These overseas operations and the brands they support are to some degree an extension of a portfolio strategy begun as early as 1979, when the winery simultaneously reached down-market with the Robert Mondavi White and Red table wines, now known by the Woodbridge label, and up with the creation of Opus One, a Napa-based collaboration with Chateau Mouton Rothschild of Bordeaux. Taking a further step, in the past few years they have begun producing wine in France, Italy and Chile through a combination of contract operations and joint ventures, creating a multinational family of brands under the umbrella of the original Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville. They were among the first California wineries to export their products, and they now sell wine in more than 90 countries, including France and Italy. ![]() In response, the Mondavis are globalizing their business. Consolidation, competition and the globalization of markets have transformed and toughened the wine industry. The wine business may be unique - in its mystique, its subjectivity and its volatility - but in the 1990's it has faced many of the same trends as any branded consumer product. Mondavi remains the winery's chief spokesman, still articulating his goal with stark clarity: to produce a wine that belongs among the world's finest.īut for his sons, Michael and Timothy, and for the rest of the management team that runs the Robert Mondavi Winery, there is no resting on past laurels. Mondavi's mixture of passion, promotion and pizzazz, or with the sheer energy to bootstrap a world-class winery from the ground up. To be sure, there were good, even great, wines made in the Napa Valley before the Robert Mondavi Winery opened its doors in Oakville in 1966. Today, entering the 21st century, the Robert Mondavi Winery is seeking an even loftier place: It aims to leverage and extend that enviable brand far beyond its Napa Valley roots, without losing its value and position in the markets it has captured. Over a little more than three decades, Robert Mondavi has built a winery and a brand that can claim a place alongside the great first growths of Bordeaux and Burgundy, vineyards with literally centuries of prestige and equity. ![]()
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