Publisher Description
Set in California’s lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, The House of Mondavi is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corporation’s twenty-first-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama.
The blood feuds are as spectacular as the business triumphs. Cesare’s sons, Robert and Peter, literally came to blows in the 1960s during a dispute touched off by the purchase of a mink coat, resulting in Robert’s exile from the family—and his subsequent founding of a winery that would set off a revolution in American winemaking. Robert’s sons, Michael and Timothy, as passionate in their own ways as their visionary father, waged battle with each other for control of the company before Michael’s expansive ambitions ultimately led to a board coup and the sale of the business to an international conglomerate.
A meticulously reported narrative based on thousands of hours of interviews, The House of Mondavi is bound to become a classic.
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“This book is terrific and I couldn’t put it down. I found myself easily interested in all of the individuals put forward in the book. The story has a nice flowing manner to it and you feel like an insider when reading it. You’d like to reach into the story and shake some sense into the family, but instead you are relegated to sitting idly by and watching the painful (and, at times, inspiring) story unfold.”
—
Lauri (4 out of 5 stars)
