Very nice Gary……..!!!!

One day you’ll be thought of as a legend and icon I’m sure just like Robert Mondovi you’ll make an impact in millions of peoples lives.

You have in mine.

You’re a good man Charlie Brown!!!!!!

Keep up the good work my man.

Love & Respect,

Glen

Gary – Great Tribute to a modern legend. Tastefully done.

Thank you, Mr. Mondavi.

Beautiful job, Gary. My Dad and I had a 97 Mondavi Napa ResCab in his honor, the day after he passed. A great man, indeed.

A wine icon that will live forever. An inspiration to show us what can be done with the right attitude and determination.
A really good tribute to a great man
Thank You

Thanks for the touching tribute to a leading pioneer in the wine world.

Thanks for the tribute GV. The world is a bit poorer without Robert Mondavi in it even if he was 94. Constellation hasn’t done wonders for any brand they have taken over.

I always judged people by how they judged Robert Mondavi. I have heard so many wonderful stories of how Robert helped people on so many different levels. The personel experience I had both with him and his sons couldn not have been better.

Yours was a great tribute.

Thanks,

Nelson

Very touching show, Gary. I am sure the Mondavi family appreciates what you have given to them and the wine world just as much as you do for Robert.

I’ve only been checking out your gig for the last 2 months or so but this is the best show I’ve seen you do yet.

Good on ya’

SB

P.S. Did you snorkel or dive the T & C?

Great show !!! I been to Napa and visit the vineyard great place… We just had a wine tasting 2001 Opus One and 2001 Robert Mondavi CabSauv Reserve and surprising we liked the RM better…Cheers!

Cmon Gary, Mondavi produced awful commercial wines. Terroir meant nothing.
Although, I suppose you have to wean people off coca cola somehow.

Paul C.

I watched the show yesterday and then today went to Cheesecake Factory and they had the Mondavi Cab on their wine list, so I had to try it. I’ve had very few Cabs, but this was my favorite one yet. I appreciate the history you gave about Mondavi, I love knowing the stories behind things.

Nice tan, dude! But very nice tribute to this giant man. My tribute, respect, admiration and gratitude to Mr. Mondavi. Peace to his soul.

You are a Class act my friend!!

A very nice tribute to a pioneer. I had the same 2005 Robert Mondavi Cab and hosted my tribute to him as well. One can only hope to be remembered as well as all have done for this good man.

GV,
That was a touching tribute to Robert Mondavi. Thanks for sharing with us.

Nice of you to do a tribute show to him. Few names have the power of his in Cali wine.

Robert Mondavi – yes, his name is amazing brand in US wine industry.

another post, system froze. I love RM’s Cab – private selection. What a great inexpensive wine!!

Beautiful… Gary, you brought me to tears with your solace for a man who pioneered the wine industry in the U.S. I’m shocked at how much I enjoyed this episode, and I’m sure the Mondavi Family is appreciative of your respect for one of their own.

CHEERS! To the life of a daring, giving, and respectable trailbreaker!

Nice Tribute.

Nice job GV.

Hey Gary & the whole crew.

I’m the grandson of a winemaker. Not a famous one though. He was just a fair man. I croped my first grapewines in his vineyard at the age of 5.
I later worked in restaurants for many years. I had the chance to sometimes open for customers great bottles and, when I was lucky enough, even to taste some of them.
I used to tell the guests of a place where I worked, in order to entice them on such bottle : “after having his/her wine tasted, I can tell that this producer is an honest man/woman” . I make my own opinions on how winemakers shape their wine. To me, this has never been a matter of making big business and profits.

The man you pay tribute to today was a very successful wine maker, and may be the nice man your describe (I can’t tell, I never met him). However, he could have been as successful as he has been in any other kind of business.
I don’t pretend to judge the man, only talk about some of his deeds.
He once launched a joint venture with a very famous actor (who is known in the U.S.A. to be representative of where I come from) to buy some land in a very beautiful area in the south of my country. Their first request was to completely destroy and rebuild the landscape in order to plant their vineyards in a more convenient way. The local administration’s people turned them down. They were then named them as “reds against business, freedom and democracy”*… Whereas the locals just wanted to preserve their countryside from being completely turned upside down. Because making wine is also a way to stay connected somehow with the earth and nature (some producers in my country planted their wineyards by following the earth’s magnetic fields and eventualy obtain better wines).

Wine world is various, just like humanity is. Some bottles are crafted as a work of art : when you taste one of them you are surprised, and led to alternative paths. Some are arrogant (they are very powerful and overflavoured right from the start, but won’t last more than half a second in the mouth) and deceptive wines who are designed especialy to establish a mainstream standard in wine drinking.
Among others, I own a bottle of south Burgundy Macon Vinzelles “Les Morandes” 2003 (Chardonnay), made by a couple who once had a very stress-generating job. They decided to quit, then started making wine. Therefore I bought a bottle from them that happened to be a very good value for money investement (it gave me a fat/thick cream texture sensation between the tongue an the palate, then went very fresh and aromatic as it descended down the throat).
Moreover, some wine makers don’t know how to deal with marketing. They might do a better job and craft a high quality wine, they will always make less money than those who have poorer wine, but are able to properly handle the image of their product. For these reasons, I don’t think I’ll ever spend 150 bones to buy the most famous Napa Valley bottle, for the sale price does not represent the value of what’s inside, but more what’s written on its label. I’d rather go for a cheaper priced Chilean cabernet sauvignon, Miguel Torres’ “Manso de Velasco” for instance. Because price cannot be the only benchmark (you also tell this in your show). For some wines can be made by partners in business. Investors/wine makers, chemists and critics who follow a 4 steps pattern : the first one buys under-estimated vineyards at low price, then makes wine with the help of the second one who micro-oxygenates. Then the third one overrates its quality in paper magazines. Finally the product can be sold at a way too high sale price, and generate an awful lot of money*.

On top of that, trade competition is unfair between wine makers all over the world. In some countries, the administration constrain wine makers with very restrictive rules, whereas some others have more latitude on their work process. As a result, I’ve tasted beverages labelled wine that were completely irrelevant regarding what I’ve been taught as being wine.

Regarding some critics, I tend to remain sceptic. What a wine drinker feels when he tastes can be completely different from his fellow co-drinker. Especially when it comes to flavours. I tend to think this is just because every person is different from another : our feelings refer to a personal background. It is a synaesthesia built on sensitive memory. Each and everyone’s is idiomatic. Smell can be a very powerful (and sometimes tricky) sense that works like an mental image catalogue. For instance, a peculiar aroma captured in my daily life can bring me back to a longtime memory, just like “Proust’s madeleine “. Thus I try to be cautious when some critics (not all of them) speak about wine’s flavor, because what one refers to, won’t match in every way with the feelings I have.
Though it’s a precious work of education you do, by improving wine lovers’ knowledge, some critics just behave as salesmen. Among them, a worldwidely famous one (who tends to uniform the wine taste all over the planet) is known to show contempt towards a production area from my country. He once had a very good bottle coming from this specific area blindtasted in a Bordeaux wine estate and completely failed as he answered this was a Bordeaux wine. His senses were just tricked by the way this wine had been crafted.
Therefore I prefer to tell my bottle-mates, whenever we share one, to build their own idea of what they like and what they don’t, rather than following the mainstream “doxology”.

I’ll ask you to apologise the length of my post, its digressions and possible mistakes. I tried to make myself as clear as possible, though English is not my native langage.

I’ll check if I can find the Napa cabernet you tried today in my country (might be ok, and less than 20 bucks may be honnest regarding its quality) and regularly keep on watchin your very interesting show on Miro.

Please, give info on when the film you talked about is released, I’d really like to watch it.

All the best,
Cya.

*Cf Johanthan Nossiter’s Mondovino (perhaps the man was angry at losing an oportunity to make big profits)
* Ibid

Gary, very nice tribute, Robert was indeed a pioneer for California Wine!

A man who took America from White Zinfandel to Bob Red and Bob white(Woodbridge)to the Brands you see today, and set standards that are still used by many Wineries today. Who made Woodbridge into a 7,000,000 million case winery and still growing, who indroduced Fume’ to the American consumer and donated millions to Colleges and preserving the History of American wine. He was a great Man in many ways!

Great Tribute to a Great Human Being !!!!!!