CHRISTOPHER W. SILVA Santa Rosa, CA: May 16, 2008 STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER SILVA This is a sad day for all of us who make or enjoy wine. Robert Mondavi was a living icon of the wine world. He was warm and engaging and truly charismatic, someone you couldn’t help but like. He taught us by his example that we could do it better in California, and inspired so many of us to believe that we could grow and make some of the best wines in the world right here in California. Robert Mondavi was the first who said that some of the best wines in the world can be grown and made in America. He believed in our potential as American winemakers and was genuinely proud of California and its grapes. He had such contagious enthusiasm and passion about wines and winemaking. I’ve never met anyone quite like him. He touched so many people with his warmth and his belief in what we in California are capable of. People all over the world are drinking better wine because of Robert Mondavi. Period. He will be greatly missed. Robert Mondavi’s lifelong example was one of hard work and dedication. He was tenacious and never gave up on that which he believed in. He loved talking to people and hearing their stories. Anyone who met him knows that he was as passionate about people as has was about wine. I had the privilege of meeting him at a wine event about 8 years ago and asking him if I could sit down and talk to him sometime. He told me to call him and I did. A few weeks later I went to see him in his office at the Winery in Napa. It was on December 8, 2000. I was 36 years old. He was 87 years old at the time and was as sharp as a tack. He said he had just finished a morning full of meetings. I remember seeing stacks of printed reports on his desk with his handwritten notes in the margins. He laughed and said he was up late the night before preparing. We talked for about 45 minutes that day. He asked me to tell him about what we were doing in Sonoma (where our Winery is) and what young people were talking about when it came to wine. He acknowledged the 51 year age difference between us and said he was genuinely gratified to see that so many young people were going into the wine business, something that he said very few educated people would have pursued back when he got started in winemaking. He wanted to talk about quality and how he thought the future of wine in California would be tied to higher quality. He said we had made such progress in California in getting away from the image of “bulk wine makers” and “jug wine makers” that we needed to keep focusing on the higher end wines to reinforce all the good work California had accomplished in making high quality wines. “The future of wine is in higher quality,” he kept saying. Near the end of the meeting his wife Margrit came in for a few minutes. You could see how he and Margrit adored each other. He wrote me a note before I left that day and told me to keep it and remember it. The note said, quite simply, “Interest is not enough—you have to be passionate.” It was signed “Robert Mondavi.” I looked at that note again this morning with sadness. I will always treasure that note. He left all of us a remarkable legacy. What a truly wonderful man. CHRISTOPHER W. SILVA |
