Explore Robert Mondavi's $200 Million Revamped Winery: Is It Worth a Visit?
Robert Mondavi has been a big name in Napa Valley since before Napa Valley was a big name in wine.
When the legendary founder opened his eponymous operation back in 1966, wine tourism was nonexistent in this part of the world. Nevertheless, the intrepid second-generation winemaker was willing to invest significantly in a Mission-style arch and tower at the edge of his vineyard, designed to pull curious motorists off neighboring Highway 29. The iconic structure today sits in the heart of a region that attracts nearly 4 million oenophiles each year.
Courtesy Robert Mondavi Winery
Now, after three years of extensive renovations that reportedly cost $200 million, the property reopens to the public revealing its most significant expansion to date—just in time for its 60th birthday. Here’s a first look inside the revamped digs and a first taste of an exclusive liquid bottled specifically for the occasion.
What's New at the Vineyard
The hallmark addition of the new build is a markedly contemporary tasting room, restaurant and adjoining veranda. It consists of open spaces with sleek lines; mounted fixtures, which evoke the local soil; ceilings lined with oak repurposed from old barrels. Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass walls allow unimpeded views of the surrounding vines. They unfurl in meticulously manicured rows toward the foot of the nearby Mayacamas Mountains.
Mondavi originally opted to set up shop here, along the outskirts of sleepy Oakville (populatoon 49), not because it was accessible to the masses, but because it sat at the edge of To Kalon Vineyard—a 440-acre site consisting of near-mystical vines originally planted by Napa Valley pioneer Hamilton Walker Crabb in 1868. From the new patio you’re uniquely positioned to marvel at this plot of earth. It has consistently produced some of North America’s best Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes for more than a century.
Courtesy Robert Mondavi Winery
“Oakville is almost dead center in the Valley, on the west side, so we get enough heat that you can ripen the varieties here and get nice maturity, but it’s not too hot that you’re cooking the grapes,” explains head winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara. “It’s the sweet spot for that balance of freshness, fruit intensity and ripeness, all together.”
Real estate along that western side of the valley also affords access to gravelly soil. It’s the type of terroir upon which Cabernet grapes thrive.
Courtesy Robert Mondavi Winery
Meanwhile, the extensive landscape architecture surrounding the new building is meant to mimic this terrain (and promote water conservation), while simultaneously shifting focus towards all that glorious fruit in the field. The 20 foot-tall edifice itself flaunts an inverted gable roof. It is both reflective of, and standing in stark contrast to, the arched lines of the original structure.
“When [Robert Mondavi] started here, there were less than 30 wineries in the Valley,” says Ogasawara. “It’s a very different place today, obviously. Now you have this new piece and the architects weren’t trying to blend it, or make it look as one. That was intentional. They wanted the new to be reflective of the old. Structurally they are kind of the opposite of one another.”
The High-Tech Cellar
Modernity extends beyond the architecture and into the wine house as well. To Kalon Cellar has been revamped with optical sorting, along with gravity flow and temperature control systems, all intended to support lot-specific vinification. These technologies maximize the aging potential of big bold reds for which the Valley is world famous.
Courtesy Robert Mondavi Winery
Guests can score an immediate preview in the form of the winery’s 60th anniversary release. It’s a 2023 vintage blended from lauded blocks of Cabernet from To Kalon and Wappo Hill Vineyards, in the Stags Leap District AVA. The $125 tasting room-exclusive holds savory sagebrush aromatics, focused acidity on the palate and a balance between slate and black fruit in the finish.
Wines stretching back to 2001 vintages are showing exceptionally well in the new tasting room. Consider a pour of the 2013 Reserve—a bold and structured offering from a drought year; or the 2021 Highest Beauty, brimming with blackberry and dried cherries. The Legend Tasting and Tour, available for $150 a person, allows you to savor some of these notable expressions of Cab—and Mondavi’s signature Fumé Blanc—while navigating a catwalk above the working winery.
Courtesy Robert Mondavi Winery
The New Restaurant
Afterwards you can book lunch at the new Mondavi Table. It’s a three-course family-style meal offered each day at noon. Menus will shift frequently to reflect seasonality—and can be customized to accommodate dietary restrictions—but right now generally include citrus salad, calamarata pasta with pesto and sun-dried tomato, and a caramelized cream and praline dessert. Each dish is specially paired with wine by an in-house sommelier and the total 90 minute experience costs $95 a person.
Winery Takeaway
Though he passed away in 2008, Mondavi would have to marvel at the new campus that bears his name. For years after his passing, it had swelled into a sort of “Disneyland of Napa,” welcoming upwards of 300,000 guests a year by the busload.
After an elevated and thoughtful retrofit, Mondavi 2.0 feels much less like a theme park and more like a presidential library, or a museum of modern art. Fittingly that original tower, alongside the archway, has been converted into an extensive cellar archive and photo gallery. It leaves you with a lasting sense of the outsized history of this place and the pioneer behind it.
“Mondavi was all about hospitality and trying to educate people,” says Ogasawara. “He wanted it to be a beacon. The phrase was always, ‘I’ll meet you at the arch.’ And then you’d walk through and immerse yourself in the vineyard.”
source https://www.mensjournal.com/drink/inside-robert-mondavi-new-winery-in-napa
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