The wine world's people

Wines & Vines, July, 1999 by Philip E. Hiaring, Larry Walker

P.E.H.

Jerry Mead. He was Wines & Vines Writer of the Year in 1985. He is a syndicated columnist whose first column appeared in 1970 in the Anaheim Bulletin. Jerry founded lots of things, including the Orange County Fair Commercial Wine Competition and W.I.N.O. He is publisher of The Wine Trader and has been known to tilt at windmills.

P.E.H.

Louis Mel. Mel was a French-born viticulturist who wound up in the Livermore Valley as proprietor of El Mocho Vineyard, which he sold to Wente. His wife helped Charles Wetmore, a top winery operator and vineyardist (Cresta Blanca) get vine cuttings from Chateau d'Yquem.

P.E.H.

The Mirassou Family. Five generations of the Mirassou family have been involved in winemaking in California, and the family winery, originally the Evergreen Estate Winery in the Santa Clara Valley, is still going strong. The Mirassou family was one of the first to see the potential for wine grapes in Monterey County and began planting there in the early 1960s. Originally, the family winery sold in bulk but eventually turned to casegoods. The 145th anniversary is this year.

L.W.

Peter Mondavi. The son of Cesare Mondavi, who was a grapegrower around Lodi and a partner in the Sunny St. Helena Winery in Napa, was part of the Mondavi family corporation that bought Sunny St. Helena from the other partners in 1946. The family produced bulk wine and premium varietals under the Charles Krug label. Peter, with his brother Robert, was instrumental in implementing technical advances that helped establish Napa Valley wines as some of the best in the world.

L.W.

Robert Mondavi. After splitting with his family, Robert Mondavi built his Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966, the first major winery built in Napa since Repeal. Mondavi has constantly pushed the cause of California wines (and wine in general) in a world crusade that has resulted in his name being virtually synonymous with premium California wine. Along with his sons Michael and Timothy and daughter, Marcia, Mondavi has expanded on several fronts, including a good value operation at Woodbridge as well as the super-premium venture in Napa called Opus One, which he established in 1979 with Philippe de Rothschild. The family has also entered into joint ventures in Chile and Italy. Today, the Mondavi Corp. has more than 4,000 acres of vineyards in California.

L.W.

Thomas V. Munson. T.V. Munson was described in The Wines of America as "America's most famous grape breeder." There is a memorial vineyard in his memory at Denison, in north central Texas. Munson received the merite agricole from the French government for saving France's phylloxera-ravaged vineyards. His solution was to graft vitis vinifera on resistant American rootstock.

P.E.H.

Myron Nightingale. Nightingale, an ASEV Merit Award winner, also received the Leon D. Adams Achievement Award from the-then W.I.T.S. He is probably best known for producing, while at Cresta Blanca (then at Livermore) an induced-botrytis Semillon called Premier Semillon. He was trained as a bacteriologist and was a member of the famed "Winemaker Class" of 1940 at the University of California. He also restored the quality reputation of Beringer, which had been in decline. Nightingale was a fancier of what he called "English Chardonnay" which, of course, was gin.