The place was a San Francisco hotel ballroom. The hushed well-dressed assembled had just watched Sandy McNally open a bottle of an 1878 Bouchard Beaune, a red wine from Burgundy.

It was the early 1980s, and a century is a lot to ask from a light red wine, regardless of its birthplace. But McNally, handling fine wines for Heublein's auction of rare wine, proclaimed the wine sound, and then added, "a lot more than sound."

Robert Mondavi was one of the first to get his half-ounce of the liquid. I was right behind Mondavi in line, and as we sniffed the 1878, Mondavi said, "Amazing! What freshness! What life there is left in this wine!"

At that point, the small group of us were told by another Heublein executive that the reason the wine was as good as it was relates as much to how it was stored as much as to how it grew and was made.

"This wine has been in Bouchard's caves since it was made," said the executive, to which Mondavi looked up with a revelatory smile: "That's it!" he said, "we must build caves if we want our wines to last this long."

That, in part, sums up the life of the man who, more than any other, helped bring the quality of all American wines to the world stage, who persistently sought to improve the breed, and who did it by experimenting with every gadget that came down the road promising quality.

The death last Friday of the man called Bob by his friends, at age 94, was not unexpected. He had been bed- and wheelchair-ridden for the last several years. But, until about age 90, he was as vital a force for California wine quality, Napa in the main, for more than 40 years.

His life story has long been chronicled: a son of Cesare, maker of grape boxes during Prohibition; partner with his younger brother Peter at Charles Krug Winery until a fight led to his ostensible banishment from the winery and his founding in May 1966 of the Robert Mondavi Winery at Oakville. It was just the second winery founded in the Napa Valley since the end of Prohibition in December 1933.

What hasn't been said much, if at all, is how Bob would acquire all sorts of equipment to try improving the breed. Though Bob never made wine himself (he got a degree in economics at Stanford), he experimented with everything he could acquire to make better wines: centrifuges, rotary fermenters, special yeasts, French oak barrels and on and on.

He also trained dozens of young wine makers who now populate wineries here and there. Among his early wine makers were Zelma Long, Mike Grgich, and Warren Winiarski, three of the state's finest wine makers.

Long-time observers of the California scene got used to seeing Bob show up at trade symposia in the least likely of places, often in the front row. And when questions were called for from the floor, Bob was one of the first on his feet.

His daughter Marcia often winced when Bob went into his act of repeating his favorite line, "California can make wines that are equal to the greatest wines in the world."

His son Tim, who was named wine maker in 1979, smiles when he recalls his father's favorite lines, such as "We have to make wines that are softer -- wines that go better with food.

We want to make wines with the power of Pavarotti, but the softness of a baby's bottom."

The style Mondavi loved best, aimed at the dinner table, was related to his love for Bordeaux -- and it was the key reason he and the late Philippe de Rothschild of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild formed the joint venture that later was called Opus One, to make a single red wine from California grapes that was made in the Bordeaux mold.

Opus One remains a single-wine winery with a Bordeaux leaning.

It was, however, that style that got the winery into trouble with two influential wine critics, Robert Parker and The Wine Spectator.

Both publications castigated Mondavi for making a more refined wine, saying that such wines weren't "great" because they were not concentrated enough to compete with the richer, more potent, alcoholic styles that had become fashionable.

Mondavi was personally hurt by the criticism, and in an interview with him about 2000, he said there were still many wine lovers who understood what he was trying to do.

But the critiques altered to a degree how the winery made some of its wines.

By then, Mondavi a public entity; it issued stock in 1993 partially because of the potential impact of inheritance tax laws. By 2000, the winery was embroiled in fiscal turmoil, with "lifestyle" wines a lot more profitable than the Napa Valley wines.

Despite financial problems at the winery, Mondavi and his wife, Margrit Biever, pledged millions to charitable causes, many of them related to wine and food.

Eventually management of the company, which had transferred to non-family hands, said that the only way the winery could solve its financial problems was go private. In 2004, Constellation Brands, the nation's largest wine company, acquired Mondavi in a deal valued at more than $1 billion.

Despite his advanced age and infirmities, Mondavi remained a part of the social scene until his passing last Friday.

A visionary pioneer, obsessed with quality, and blessed with an inquisitive mind, Robert Mondavi will be remembered forever as the man who single-handedly elevated the image of all California wine to deserving world-class status.

Wine of the Week: 2007 St. Supery Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley ($22) ñ A dramatic varietal aroma of melon, tarragon and fresh citrus leads to a mouth-watering slightly soft wine that works brilliantly with poached seafood. Always a great white wine.

Dan Berger resides in Sonoma County, Calif. Berger publishes a weekly newsletter on wine and can be reached at danberger@VintageExperiences.com. To find out more about Dan Berger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
   
Sidebar:

California wine makers tend to live very long lives. Here is a look at just a few of them:

Ernest Gallo (E%J Gallo Winery): March 18, 1909 to March 6, 2007

Robert Mondavi (Robert Mondavi Winery): June 18, 1913 to May 16, 2008

Anthony George Diener, Brother Timothy (The Christian Brothers): 1910 to Dec. 2, 2004

Andre Tchelistcheff (Beaulieu Vineyards): Dec. 7, 1901 to April 5, 1994

Louis J. Foppiano (Foppiano Vineyards): Nov. 25, 1911 to present

John Parducci (Parducci, McNab Ridge): January 22, 1918 to present