Julio Gallo is seen in this photo toasting Robert Mondavi on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Without Mr. Mondavi, who died peacefully yesterday in his Napa Valley home at the age of 94, Mr. Gallo, his brother Ernest and indeed all of California would forever be known as the world’s largest producer of screw-top, crap, jug wines. A state and country where quantity consistently rules over quality, no party was complete unless a beer keg stood side-by-side with a 4-litre jug of wine. The industry in California, pre-Mondavi, even saw the invention of the paper wine carton to which one could affix a plastic spigot to ensure everyone’s glass remained easily filled. A truly sad day in the history of wine making globally.

It was Mr. Mondavi who literally “bet the farm” and single-handedly pushed California vintners to produce vintage, high quality wines that would lead a global wine boom in the late 80s and 90s and even challenged France’s long held domination for quality and snootiness. He was a Stanford business graduate and successful vintner when, at age 52, Mr. Mondavi broke with his family (literally in a fistfight with his brother), to pursue his dream of making top quality wines. He borrowed the money to start the Robert Mondavi Winery and was always convinced California grapes could produce wines to compete at all levels in the global market.

He was an entrepreneur who shared his secrets with everyone and they shared theirs. He travelled across Europe and indeed around the world, intent on learning the secrets of the great wine growers. Through his insistence on knowledge exchange and learning from the best practices of vintners around the globe, he entered in to fascinating, innovative and lucrative relationships. It was his partnership with legendary French vintner Baron Philippe de Rothschild that made his dream a reality. He two would grow and make the ultra-premium Opus One in Oakville. The venture’s first vintage was in 1979 and they never looked back.

“It is hard to imagine anyone having more of a lasting impact on California’s $20 billion-a-year wine industry than Robert Mondavi,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. Mondavi, said the governor, was “a tireless entrepreneur who transformed how the world felt about California wine, and an unforgettable personality to everyone who knew him.”

Robert Mondavi and his wife were legendary philanthropists giving millions of dollars to causes throughout Napa Valley. His biggest fear was not being able to live up to his charitable commitments. A wine glut and intense competition gradually cost his family control of the business. In 2004, the company accepted a buyout worth $1.3 billion from Fairport, N.Y.-based Constellation Brands. He remained though a global Ambassador for wine until his death.

I first visited the Mondavi vineyard on a business trip to California in 1986. The area was already in the midst of a massive refit as stately European-style vineyard buildings replaced tacky roadside tasting shacks up and down Highway 29. It was easy to drink oneself up one side and back down the other as drink driving laws were not as much in force and vintners wanted you to try and buy large jugs of your favourite wines bottled at the source.

For the next two decades, vintners changed to appeal to more snobbish drinkers and prices spiked as quality improved. Vineyards became full-fledged tasting salons and scenes like this from the hit film “Sideways” showed how silly wine tasting could really become.

The industry though in the mid 1980’s was still shooting itself in the mass market foot with silly adverts promoting wine coolers, but thankfully at least the jug wine adverts disappeared.

Even Gallo saw the benefit of producing higher quality wine (despite being the owners of Bartyles and James). Soon though, the tenor and quality would dramatically improve even amongst former jug wine producers.

So thank you Robert Mondavi for bringing civilization to northern California and stoking the world’s curiosity to taste great vintages from such far-fling regions as Chile, South Africa, Australia and other parts of this very small and fragrant world. 

I know understand why my friend left television programming sales to live on and run a vineyard in South Africa. Without your influence on the market, we’d all be the poorer.