Winemaking patriarch Robert Mondavi dead at 94; was Minnesota native
by The Associated Press

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Robert Mondavi, the Minnesota native who helped put California wine country on the map, has died. He was 94.

A spokeswoman for the Robert Mondavi Winery Mondavi says he died peacefully at his Napa Valley home yesterday.

Mondavi was 52 and a winemaking veteran in 1966, when he opened the winery that would help turn the Napa Valley into a world center of the wine industry.

At the time, California was still primarily known for cheap jug wines. But he set out to change that, always convinced that California wines could compete with the European greats.

Mondavi was born in Virginia, Minnesota. He got an economics degree from Stanford University in the 1930s and went to work at the Charles Krug Winery, which his Italian-born parents had bought after moving to California from Minnesota.