Judgment of Paris

by George M. Taber

  In the small world of Napa Valley wine, Grgich and Mondavi knew each other and also each other’s reputations, so there was little need for polite chitchat. Mondavi asked Grgich what specifically he did at Beaulieu. The visitor explained that in addition to making wine he had done research on things like malolactic fermentation and was proud that Beaulieu in 1962 had done the first large-scale malolactic fermentation in the valley. Grgich also discussed using Millipore filters to stabilize wines. He talked at length and with great pride about making the Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, which had earned a reputation of being California’s best Cabernet.

  Then with his ever-present and infectious enthusiasm, Mondavi sketched out the goals for his new winery. He was going to make great, French-style wines and had equipped his facility with all the latest equipment and technology. He was going first class—and right to the top. This was going to be America’s premier winery. Mondavi also explained that his son Michael had come back from his military service and was now the winemaker, but added that Michael was only in his early twenties and didn’t yet have much experience.

  Grgich was clearly interested, and Mondavi knew how to close the deal. He put his hand on Grgich’s shoulder and said, “Mike, I’m going to make you a little André Tchelistcheff.”

  That was exactly what Grgich wanted to hear. After Lee Stewart, Tchelistcheff had been his second mentor in the valley. But it was time to move, and this was the place to come. The problem of a successor son remained and he would not have the top job, but Mondavi was a place where Grgich could grow. His title would be that of head of quality control, but he would be doing a lot more than that. He would be working directly with Robert and Michael and helping make wines.

  Grgich stayed on at Beaulieu to finish that year’s harvest, but then started working for Mondavi. He got a raise, going from six hundred dollars a month at Beaulieu to seven hundred dollars a month. Things remained a bit helter-skelter at the winery. Many of the wine tanks were still located outside, as they had been when Winiarski was at Mondavi, and experiments were constantly taking place. But it was an exciting place to work.

  Grgich contributed to the winery what he had learned from Stewart and Tchelistcheff. Stewart was particularly good with white wines, while Tchelistcheff was stronger in reds. Everything, of course, was more modern at the Robert Mondavi Winery than at Souverain or Beaulieu Vineyard. Mondavi, for example, was using the same small oak barrels as those of the top French châteaux. The new winery was also buying the best grapes it could find in the valley.

  Every Monday afternoon the Mondavis, Grgich, and a few people from production and sales got together and tasted Mondavi wines against the best French wines, their standard of international excellence that Robert was determined to beat. With good equipment, good grapes, and good winemakers, the result was not surprising. Robert Mondavi wines, both white and red, soon showed the classical style Grgich had learned at Beaulieu and quickly began attracting attention.

  Robert Lawrence Balzer, the wine writer for theLos Angeles Times, put together a blind tasting of nine of the best 1969 California Cabernet Sauvignons. The judges were some of California’s winemakers, including Tchelistcheff and Robert Mondavi, plus the heads of such wineries as Concannon Vineyard, Christian Brothers, Heitz Wine Cellar, and Rodney Strong Vineyards. The judges had themselves made most of the nine wines they tasted. The Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet came out on top. That brought a flood of favorable publicity, and Mondavi’s wines were immediately considered in the top rank of California wines, on a par with those of Beaulieu Vineyard.

  Robert personally got all the good press, but Grgich enjoyed the afterglow just as much in private. This was the first of many important wine competitions where a wine he had made, or helped make, had won, and it felt good. “This is proof that I can make better wines and that I should continue doing that,” Grgich told himself over and over after the Balzer tasting.

  As much as he enjoyed the excitement at Mondavi, Grgich grew to be uncomfortable with the direction the winery was going. The lack of rules and procedures began to bother him. From Lee Stewart he had learned that everything had to be done rigorously by the book. From Tchelistcheff, Grgich had seen and learned that you improve wines by doing an experiment, following up to make sure the results were repeatable, and then doing another experiment and more follow-up. At Mondavi the attitude was: Just do it.

  “Robert has twice as many ideas as I do,” Grgich told friends. “I have some, but not as many as he.” Mondavi was charging ahead faster than Grgich was comfortable following.

  Mondavi’s goal was to build a very large winery that would produce wines at various levels of quality and price. The winery was crushing five hundred tons of grapes a year when Grgich arrived; four years later it would be crushing five thousand tons. One day in 1970, Grgich went to Robert Mondavi and told him that he could no longer control all the wines being produced. Grgich suggested hiring another winemaker to handle lesser wines, while he would continue to work on just Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

  Mondavi turned down the request, telling him, “Mike, I know you can handle it.”

  Grgich responded, “I know I cannot. I will not be happy if some mistake happens, and I cannot control it. I want to have total control and perfect wines.”

  Eventually Grgich was allowed to hire an assistant, Zelma Long, but still the work was overwhelming. During the harvest and crush Grgich and Long worked virtually around the clock.

  The pace and the size of the Mondavi operation continued to bother Grgich so much that he began listening to job offers from other wineries, often at much higher salaries. All of the offers, though, involved Grgich being just another hired hand. They didn’t get him closer to his goal of one day having his own winery. So he decided to stay at Robert Mondavi. Despite the problems, it was still the best winery in the valley.

  Winter in the Napa Valley is particularly beautiful. Wild mustard plants grow among the vines on the valley floor, turning the area into an explosion of yellow. In some spots the tightly packed mustard plants make it look as if someone has thrown down a huge yellow carpet. On one of those winter days early in 1972, when flowers were in bloom, Lee Paschich showed up at the Robert Mondavi Winery, ostensibly to get some yeast to use for his homemade wine.

  Paschich met with Grgich, and it didn’t take him long to get to the real point of his visit. “Mike, I now have partners at Chateau Montelena, and they wanted me to talk to you,” he said.

  “About what?” asked Grgich.

  “I’ve sold the vineyard and the winery to two investors from Los Angeles, but I’m still involved as a partner. They need a winemaker and are wondering whether you’d be interested in talking to them. My partners want to make quality wines. We like Cabernet Sauvignon, and that’s what we want to make. Why don’t you come up, and we can talk further?”

  With Michael Mondavi and even his younger brother Timothy Mondavi ahead of him at their father’s business, Grgich thought that the Paschich proposal was worth at least further discussion.

  Grgich met first with Barrett and Paschich at the offices of the window-shade company next to Chateau Montelena. Grgich arrived wearing his trademark dark-blue beret, and the meeting went well. Grgich told them about his experience making Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Barrett described his vision of making a world-class Cabernet that would be as good as the best wines of Bordeaux. In order to keep the quality high, the output of the winery would remain small—no more than forty thousand cases a year. That smaller-scale approach appealed to Grgich after his experience with Robert Mondavi.

  Barrett offered Grgich the job, with an unexpected fillip. The lawyer wanted to get some golden handcuffs on his winemaker, so he offered him the chance to eventually own 10 percent of the business. For starters Grgich would sign a five-year contract that gave him a salary plus 1 percent ownership per year. If Grgich ever left the company, however, he’d have to sell back his shares. The possibi
lity of some ownership hit the right button with Grgich. After working for others around the Napa Valley for fourteen years, here was a chance to own a part of something.

  Grgich was excited at the prospect, but told Barrett that he first had to talk with Mondavi. “I’m almost part of the family,” Grgich explained.

  The next day Grgich went to Mondavi. “Bob, I’d like to take a one-month leave of absence. It’s still early in the year, and there isn’t that much to do here. Some people are starting a new winery, and they want me to be the winemaker. They are willing to give me part ownership.”

  “Mike, if that’s true, it’s a big improvement over what you have here. I can’t give you a partnership. I have two sons and a daughter. I can’t match that offer.”

  “I’m not asking you to match it. I just wanted to tell you that I have this opportunity.”

  “Take the month off, and good luck. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll always be welcome back.”

  Two weeks later and after further talks with Barrett and Paschich, Grgich was back in Mondavi’s office. “Bob, these people want me to go ahead.”

  “That’s fine. But don’t do a thing until you have everything on paper and signed. Get a clean-cut agreement about the percentage you will get and get it in writing. Otherwise, don’t do it!”

  On May 8, 1972, Grgich started his new job. Not much had been done since Barrett had bought the property nearly six months before. The winery was still little more than a beautiful pile of rocks with a lot of useless old equipment. The first day on the job Paschich gave Grgich a pad of paper and a pencil and told him to design a winery and come up with a five-year budget.

  Grgich had never designed a winery, but a friend who had been a consultant with Mondavi helped with the layout. When Grgich returned with his design and budget, Barrett was alarmed: there was no income for five years.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “That’s the minimum of how long it’s going to take to get any income from Cabernet. We first have to rip out the old vines and plant Cabernet grapes. Then for the first couple of years, you won’t get much of a crop, and after that the wine will have to age in oak barrels for about two years.”

  “Mike, we’re going to be broke before that happens. We haven’t got that kind of money. We’ve got to figure out some other way of doing it.”

  “We could make white wines first. We’ll buy grapes for the white wines from growers. Robert Mondavi buys his grapes. Only a few wineries like Beaulieu grow all their own. We can buy the grapes and get some cash flow while we wait for the Cabernet to develop. Lee Paschich loves Riesling. We could crush Riesling grapes in October and sell it in March. Chardonnay takes a little longer. It has to age in barrels for about eight months, but you’ll be selling it about two years after we crush the grapes.”

  “Okay, let’s give it a try. But don’t skimp on the price for grapes; pay what you have to in order to get the best. You can’t fool people. If we cut corners to save money, they’ll know it.”

  Although he spent little time in Calistoga, Barrett gradually became intimately involved in all aspects of the business. About twice a month he flew up to Napa Valley for some hands-on work, which often involved visiting a grower from whom they might buy grapes. On these trips Barrett camped out at the winery in a room equipped with a single bed and a hot plate for making morning coffee or heating up dinner.

  Once new winery equipment was bought and new vines were planted, Barrett turned his attention to marketing. Americans were demanding better cuisine when they went out to eat, and good restaurants, the kind where you might order a great bottle of wine to go with a great dinner, were opening in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities. Believing that fine wines follow fine food, Barrett decided to target the restaurant business, which meant getting Chateau Montelena on wine lists and before influential people. He hired a salesperson to work San Francisco–area restaurants. Barrett also wrote a chatty newsletter that he sent to friends and customers. Someday, he wrote, Chateau Montelena wines would be “recognized as being among the finest in the world.” He added: “The wines of Chateau Montelena will be instantly recognizable by the distinctive style of the wines when you taste them.”

  In the vineyard and the winery, Grgich was experiencing both failure and success. In 1972, he crushed 12,147 gallons of Cabernet, made with grapes bought from the Redwood Ranch in Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley and the Lee Paschich vineyard in the Napa Valley. But rain fell for twelve consecutive days during the peak period for picking the Cabernet and mold developed on the grapes. Looking at the mold, Barrett, Grgich, and Paschich knew they would not produce wine of the quality they wanted as their first Cabernet on the market. Early tasting in the spring of 1974, while the wine was still in barrels, confirmed their fears. They all agreed that it wasn’t what they had hoped for. Barrett told Grgich and Paschich: “You don’t go to a ball in a torn gingham dress.” They later sold this wine under a second label, Silverado Cellars.

  The Chateau Montelena white wines, on the other hand, enjoyed early success. Grgich put to work what he had learned at both Beaulieu Vineyard and the Robert Mondavi Winery to make his own Johannisberg Riesling, the new winery’s first product on the market. Beaulieu’s Riesling was a little bitter because it was totally dry. The wine, Grgich thought, was not food friendly, and as a result sold poorly. The Riesling from Robert Mondavi Winery, on the other hand, had about 1 percent residual sugar and sold much better. Grgich left 2 percent residual sugar in his first Riesling in 1972 and called it a Late Harvest, a term used by Germans to signify a slightly sweet wine.

  The 1972 Chateau Montelena Johannisberg Riesling, the winery’s first wine on the market, captured the attention of critics perhaps because its touch of sweetness appealed to American tastes. It picked up a Golden Eagle award as one of the ten best California Rieslings at a tasting done by theLos Angeles Times . In October 1975, wine critic Robert Finigan wrote of Chateau Montelena’s 1974 vintage, “Intriguing flavors combine with an elegant style and an exceptionally long finish to produce what I consider one of the finest California Rieslings currently obtainable.”

  The Chateau Montelena Chardonnays also did well in tastings, although less well with critics. Grgich aged his first 1972 vintage in French oak barrels, but since they were being used for the first time, the barrels gave the wine an overly oaky and tannic taste. Grgich attempted to compensate for that with extra bottle aging, which gave the wine a good bouquet and fruitiness. Since only 800 cases were made, it was not widely distributed. In September 1974, theRobert Finigan’s Private Guide to Wines rated the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay only as “above average.” Finigan wrote that it had an “attractive smaller Chardonnay nose,” damning it with faint praise as “nice enough but not especially deep or complex; lightly oaky aftertaste.”

  Chateau Montelena wines were doing well with new tasting groups that were starting to be fashionable in the early 1970s. Many Americans became acquainted with good wine through such clubs as the Berkeley Wine and Food Society or the many chapters of Les Amis du Vin. The members often used a scoring system designed by professors at UC Davis and brought a very systematic approach to wine tasting. It wasn’t good enough to say that you liked this wine better than that one; you had to explain why and describe the tastes. The most important organization was the San Francisco Vintners Club, which held its first tasting on June 21, 1973. An eclectic collection of wine professionals and amateurs met every Thursday afternoon at 4:30 for a blind tasting of usually twelve wines of a given category such as Zinfandel or Sauternes. The 1972 Chateau Montelena Johannisberg Riesling was part of a tasting on June 16, 1974, that noted its “small but elegant nose.” The following month its Chardonnay was center stage and gained the comment “excellent Chardonnay nose.”

  As reported by theSan Diego Grapevine newsletter, the Feisty Friends of the Vine at a meeting on October 27, 1974, at Zolezzi’s Restaurant in San Diego compared ten easily available Californi
a Chardonnays. The 1972 Chateau Montelena came in first. The same group at another meeting that year in San Diego blind tasted just two wines: a 1972 Bâtard-Montrachet, one of the most famous white Burgundies, and the 1972 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. The French wine was then selling for about $17.50 a bottle in stores, while the California wine was $6.50. By a margin of three to one, the tasters preferred the Chateau Montelena.

  Barrett, Hahn, and Paschich were delighted with the results the Grgich wines were receiving. They were off to a very good start and things would only get better once their own vineyards were producing their own grapes. As a gesture of their appreciation for the progress that they were making, the owners sent their winemaker for a week’s vacation in Hawaii. In addition, Hahn gave Grgich 800 shares of his shopping mall company. At the time the stock was worth only three cents a share, but in 1977 Grgich sold them for $45,000.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Making the 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon

  A glass of good wine is a gracious creature and reconciles poor mortality to itself, and that is what few things can do.

  —SIR WALTER SCOTT

  The 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon aging in oak barrels.

  André Tchelistcheff’s most prized possession was his yellow 1971 Datsun 240Z sports car, which he normally drove too fast along the Napa Valley’s narrow roads. He was again going too fast on a warm afternoon in late September 1973, as he pulled off the Silverado Trail and into the driveway of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. He was there to take a look at the ripening grape crop. In just a few days Warren Winiarski would have to make the crucial decision about when to pick his grapes. Nature had just about finished with its work in the vineyard, and the winemaker would soon be starting his job of turning the ripe grapes into wine.