Losing Margrit Mondavi ends an era

Margrit Mondavi passed away last Friday at her Coombsville home in Napa after dealing with stomach cancer for two years. At 91 she was considered “the first lady” or “queen” of Napa Valley. Her late second husband, Robert Mondavi, has been given credit for personally marketing the Napa Valley and its wines for decades, of course with her help.

During World War II Margrit Kellenberger met and married U.S. Army Captain Philip Biever, eventually moving to Napa Valley in 1960.

The Switzerland native gave art tours of the Mondavi Winery when she met her future husband and eventually brought in famous artists, major musical performers, and chefs to support the Napa Valley Symphony and Napa Valley Opera House and to elevate cultural life in the Napa Valley. Early concerts featured Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett, all stars at the time. She is also credited with starting the Napa Valley Wine Auction in 1981, and helping her husband pledge to fund Copia and their music center near UC Davis.

Re-meeting the two of them at the home of M.F.K. Fisher, I remember them talking about how they had to wait to marry because Mondavi’s first wife, Marjorie, and mother of their three children (Michael, Marcia and Tim), was making his divorce very difficult and insisted “there would never be another Mrs. Mondavi” as long as she was alive. Marjorie passed away in 1979, and Margrit and Robert married in 1980 after a long relationship.

In 2001, Margrit and Robert Mondavi made a personal gift of over $2 million to the University of California at Davis to establish the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, and to launch the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts which opened in October 2002. In addition, the couple supported the Oxbow School, an art school in Napa that provides instruction for art students.

The Robert Mondavi Winery board forced the sale of the winery to Constellation Brands in 2004. Recently Margrit Mondavi donated $2 million to the Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis.

It was sad and somewhat shocking to see some of her personal belongings and letters to Mondavi among the vast lots at the liquidation auction following the closure of Copia in Napa (now being reinvigorated by the Culinary Institute of America.)

Gina Gallo and Jean-Charles Boisset purchased the longtime Mondavis’ Cliff May-designed home at auction, reported to include 11,500 square feet on 56 acres. Cliff May also designed Robert Mondavi Winery and Sunset magazine’s original Menlo Park campus.

In honor of Margrit’s passing, Mondavi family prefers donations to the Oxbow School in Napa or to the American Cancer Society.