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NAPA VALLEY | WINE COUNTRY THIS WEEK Charles Krug Legacy Approaching 150 Years Napa Valley’s first winery was founded by Krug, a 24-year-old revolutionary who was behind a coup to overthrow the German Parliament. He was thrown into prison, to be freed only during a second revolution attempt nine months later. While Europe’s great cities – Prague, Paris and Berlin – were in a state of political and economic disaster, from the California Gold Rush came stories of riches and glory, and the promise of unimaginable wealth. It didn’t take Krug long to ship off for the New World. Charles Krug was educated and entrepreneurial, making the first commercial wines in Napa in 1859, and founding Napa Valley’s first winery in 1861. He was the first major vintner to apply scientific method and European technique to winemaking here. He also brought varietal diversity to Napa Valley, first planting then rejecting the Mission grape in favor of European varietals. Considering both varietals and terroir, he carefully selected rootstocks and vineyard sites – a novel concept in the rough-and-tumble Old West. Charles Krug not only set the stage, he built the stage for the Napa Valley wine business. In the early 1900s another immigrant-entrepreneur, Italian Cesare Mondavi, started a grocery business in Minnesota. To supply his customers’ winemaking endeavors, Cesare devised an innovative solution: he began travelling to California to buy Zinfandel grapes to ship home. Meanwhile, Charles Krug’s historic winery in St. Helena was falling into ruin. With his grape business booming, Cesare and his wife Rosa moved their young family to California, then bought Krug’s languishing legacy in 1943. The Peter Mondavi Family history at Charles Krug traces almost 70 years of California history and innovation. After graduating from Stanford University, Peter Mondavi Sr. pursued wine studies at U.C. Berkeley, where he experimented extensively with cold fermentation techniques. Peter was painstakingly careful, a quiet and thoughtful scientist to the core. At the family winery, he pioneered those cold fermentation processes – the first winemaker in California to do so. The Mondavis published the first winery newsletter in California (Bottles & Bins, 1949) and, in 1953, Life Magazine declared that Charles Krug produced the best California white wine of the year. The winery’s Tastings on the Lawn, now in their 59th year, are believed to be the earliest public wine tastings of their kind and went on to inspire a myriad of other tasting events. In 1963, Charles Krug was the first Napa Valley winery to import French oak barrels to age wine and was among the first to vintage-date varietal wines. Charles Krug Winery was featured in two movies, the 1959 Rock Hudson/Jean Simmons film, “This Earth is Mine” and, more recently, “A Walk in the Clouds” with Keanu Reeves. (Peter Mondavi’s kids – Marc and Pete Jr. – remember spying on Hudson and Simmons from their hiding place on top of the old redwood wine tanks during the filming. Incidentally, their worst job as kids was sanding those same tanks.) Mondavi family: Janice, Marc, Angelina, Peter Sr., Blanche, Peter Jr. and Katie When Cesare died in 1959, Rosa Mondavi and sons, Peter and Robert, ran Charles Krug Winery until 1966 when, after a family rift, Robert moved a few miles south to start his own winery, taking his inspiration from entrepreneur Krug and launching a veritable empire. In 1966, Peter Sr. was named president of Charles Krug. (And he still comes into work most every day. That certainly speaks to the power of red wine: he recently turned 95!) In the 1970s, the winery was producing more than a million cases a year and was one of the most commercially successful operations in the Napa Valley. The movie “Bottleshock” reminds us that 1973 marked the vintage of a Napa Valley wine which famously bested the best of French wines in an international competition, and 1974 was purported to be one of the best vintages in California history. To wit, Charles Krug’s F-1 Selection Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from 1974 was described as a beautiful, alluring wine marked by elegance. While Peter’s son, Marc, runs the CK Mondavi brand today, younger son, Pete Jr., is proprietor of Charles Krug. This far-looking and thoughtful Mondavi has a Masters degree in engineering and an MBA. In 1981, using the latest Hewlett Packard technologies (which were at the same time creating history in Silicon Valley), Pete refined the innovative cold fermentation processes pioneered in Napa Valley by his father. While life has dealt some blows to the Mondavi clan through the years, this family was nonetheless instrumental in the creation of Napa Valley as we know it. It is the story of a family united, divided and ultimately successful at making great wine. To the present: how do Peter’s sons – obviously firmly rooted in the wine history of Napa Valley – reconcile traditions with progress, put their historic family rupture behind them, learn from it, then move bravely into a New World of Wine? 34 www.WineCountryThisWeek.com
WINE COUNTRY THIS WEEK | NAPA VALLEY Continued They’ve decided to do so first by respecting their history, then by affirming their commitment to preserve and even better the vineyards and winery which are their legacy. Pete’s goal is to boost the winery out of complacency and into new growth and change. He has literally bet the family farm on remaking Charles Krug. First, focusing on noble Bordeaux varietals, the family replanted their 850 prime Napa Valley acres with high-quality clonal varieties specifically matched to the terroir. All the vineyards are now being farmed organically and sustainably and the family among the most extensive sustainably-farmed landowners in Napa Valley. In addition, Pete wants to get his home and, eventually, the winery, off the grid. He is focusing on bettering the land to guarantee a healthy legacy for both his wines and his kids. As a result, Pete’s efforts have been recognized in Vanity Fair’s annual Green Issue among others. Next, the family brought in new winemaking talent and built a winery-within-a-winery with all new equipment, to treat their premium Napa Valley wines in the style they deserve. Recent Charles Krug wines – the Yountville Cabernet Sauvignon and Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, for example ($27 and $18 respectively), exude the soul and pedigree of their Napa Valley terroir and are prompting wine writers to take a fresh look. Both were named to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 wines of 2007, the Sauvignon Blanc was honored as Sunset Magazine’s Top Value White Wine of the Year, and the Cabernet is one of Wine & Spirits Magazine’s top Cabernet Sauvignons for 2008 and again in 2009. Peter and family are committed to crafting elegant, nuanced wines that respect their provenance, not big, blowsy fruit bombs with ridiculous price tags. This third generation of Napa Valley’s First Family of Wine is determined to steward the land, to remain family-owned and focused on quality while their competitors (and even their late Uncle Robert's winery) are absorbed into “Global Wine.” Committed to preserving Charles Krug Winery’s significant historical legacy, Peter and sons have restored two landmark structures, Charles Krug’s original Redwood Cellar and 1881 Carriage House, honoring the birthplace of Napa wine, for which they received California Preservation Foundation Preservation Design Awards. 2010 and $25+ million later (with no conglomerate to foot the bill) no other California winery has brought so much innovation early on, or staged such a determined turnaround. Marc’s and Pete’s efforts to steward the land and preserve the winery's historical legacy are earning new respect for a family long identified with California wine. Says Marc: “These are the values our father and grandfather instilled in us. We are investing in the future of this family, this winery, and this remarkable place.” www.WineCountryThisWeek.com 35
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