Monumental project at Charles Krug

<p>If ever there were a first family of American wine it is the epic Mondavis.</p><p>They've had their dramatic highs and lows, internecine squabbles, and late-quarter hails for redemption. Most of all, they've made herculean contributions to our now well-established traditions in wine.</p><p>The latest development in the Mondavis' generational saga is cause for celebration.</p><p>Earlier this, fall Peter Mondavi, who turns 94 next month, and his sons, Peter Jr. and Marc, unveiled the newly restored Redwood Cellar, a building dating back to 1872, as well as the 1881 Carriage House at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena. Both are nationally recognized landmarks built by Charles Krug himself at the iconic winery the Mondavis have owned since the 1940s.</p><p>The Redwood Cellar, a six-story, unreinforced masonry building the family plans to use for, among other things, barrel storage, is where young Peter and Marc used to play with Robert's kids, Michael, Marcia and Timothy.</p><p>What the cousins most remember about the place were the hundreds of 20-foot redwood fermentation tanks stored by their grandparents, Cesare and Rosa Mondavi, who bought the iconic Krug for $75,000 in 1943. Prussian immigrant Charles Krug had originally put down stakes here in 1861, making it the first winery in the Napa Valley.</p><p>He had built the Carriage House for his wife, an avid collector of horse-drawn carriages. It has since taken on the important role of party house, a genteel spot for fund-raisers and VIP tastings near the old oaks and rolling lawn, with four new double doors now opening to the outside views and milled redwood planks from some of the Redwood Cellar's old fermentation tanks lining the vaulted walls.</p><p>It's the culmination of the family's determination that things around here needed changing -- from how they approached grape-growing (go organic) to rethinking wine quality (make better cab) to reinvigorating two historic gems.</p><p>"Between time taking its toll and the earthquake requirements for structures of this type and age, we had to address it one way or another," explained Peter Mondavi, Jr. "We wanted to bring it back to its original luster."</p><p>But the metamorphosis wasn't just about the structural and the physical. It was about reinventing Charles Krug and the Peter Mondavi Family in every way imaginable, a process that forced them to look forward as much as back.</p><p>In the Mondavi family's early days of owning Krug, there simply wasn't a lot of competition around. Among the Napa Valley wineries of any size in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, were Louis Martini, Beringer, Beaulieu Vineyards, Christian Brothers and Inglenook, names owned these days by global corporations or gone altogether.</p><p>For the Mondavis at Charles Krug, longevity didn't always have its rewards. While it plodded along intact as a family-run entity, its wines got left behind by consumers seduced by more and better choices.</p><p>"My uncle (Robert) was the greatest PR man in the world and my dad was always the one making the wine," Marc explained. "He had no interest in going out there. He figured, keep making good wine and it'll sell itself. Probably in the 1950s and '60s when there was very little competition that worked fine, but with more and more wineries."</p><p>By the 1970s, powerhouses like Joseph Phelps, Far Niente and Duckhorn (not to mention Robert Mondavi Winery down the road) were on the scene, followed soon enough by small-production cult cabernets (Harlan, Grace, Colgin, Screaming Eagle among them) even more intriguing to collectors.</p><p>Krug had been pulling itself in too many directions making too many different wines, its reputation for fine cabernet sauvignon all but forgotten.</p><p>"At one point, for Napa Valley cabernet Charles Krug was on the list," said Peter Jr. "We clearly fell off that short list and become more commonly associated with California or the North Coast, rarely with Napa."</p><p>Around 1990, once Peter Sr. was ready to let go the reins, the solution was to ramp up quality over quantity, particularly of the Charles Krug labeled wines, of which the family makes about 70,000 cases a year. Most notable among those is Charles Krug Family Reserve, which includes a vintage selection cab, and Generations, their proprietary high-end Bordeaux blend.</p><p>The family is also among the largest owners of certified organic vineyard land in the Napa Valley, with 11 properties totaling 850 acres from Carneros to the Charles Krug Vineyard surrounding the winery.</p><p>In Peter Jr.'s words, the recently completed $8 million restoration project "symbolizes our respect for tradition, our ongoing commitment to protect the land and buildings that are our legacy, and our faith in the future of this family, this winery and this remarkable place. These are the values our father instilled in us."</p><p>Virginie Boone is a freelance wine writer based in Sonoma County. She can be reached at virginieboone @yahoo.com or visit wineabout.pressdemocrat.com.</p>