Napa’s famous Robert Mondavi Winery is set to reopen following a three-year closure for a major renovation.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
A posh retail shop at the new Mondavi.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Historic Mondavi vintages on display in a wine library, which includes a tiny tasting room in the bell tower.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Tastings now start at $60 — up from $45 before the closure, but below the regional average.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Guests can relax and sip wine in numerous outdoor cabanas.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
The Robert Mondavi Winery 2022 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc and a 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition Cabernet Sauvignon.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
The reception area, designed to resemble Mondavi’s former living room, features photos of the Mondavi family adorning the walls.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
The mezzanine is the showpiece of the new winery, which has been upgraded with high-tech equipment.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
An outdoor lounge area is flanked by a new water feature.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Robert Mondavi at his winery in 2003, celebrating his 90th birthday.
John Storey/S.F. Chronicle
For decades, Robert Mondavi Winery was the pinnacle of Napa Valley wine tourism. The first in the wine region to build a dedicated visitor center in 1966, its founder, Robert Mondavi, practically invented Wine Country hospitality. But by the 1990s, that image began to slip. Mondavi’s successful Woodbridge brand of cheaper, mass-produced wines diluted the Napa winery’s reputation. In 1993, he took the company public, which intensified the pressure to deliver growth at the expense of quality.
In 2004, the winery was sold to conglomerate Constellation Brands for roughly $1 billion. Newer, fancier estates started popping up all over Napa Valley, such as Alpha Omega and Round Pond. Mondavi found itself relegated to a “gateway” or “Disneyland winery,” known for its distinct, Mission-style architecture and theme park-sized crowds of first-timers arriving on tour buses to the tune of more than 350,000 visitors per year.
The wine hospitality landscape Mondavi had defined has also shifted dramatically. Since 2016, Napa Valley wine tasting fees have more than doubled, averaging $75 for the standard experience in 2023 — earning the region a reputation for being too expensive, too exclusive — while post-pandemic, many wineries no longer allow walk-ins.
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“The Vineyard Room” is the largest tasting space at Mondavi.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
On April 20, following a three-year closure, Robert Mondavi Winery will debut a major transformation. The year’s most anticipated California winery opening, it is arguably the most dramatic — and dramatically expensive — Napa Valley winery renovation in history. The stakes are appropriately enormous: The ambitions of the new Mondavi are no less than revitalizing the reputation of Napa Valley’s most famous winery; re-establishing its owner, Constellation, as a defining wine industry power player; and reenergizing tourism in Napa Valley, which remains in the midst of a multi-year slowdown as the wine industry crisis approaches its nadir.
Mondavi’s metamorphosis is apparent from the moment you walk under its signature arch. The perfectly manicured green lawn at the center of the property, where Mondavi previously hosted its annual summer concert series — drawing names like Ella Fitzgerald and Cheryl Crow — has been replaced by a wild botanical garden that’s representative of the natural Napa Valley landscape. Walking paths meander through native and drought-resistant trees, plants, grasses and flowers. Before, “everyone was afraid to walk” on the lawn, which “had a suburban feel to it,” said lead architect David Darling, co-founder of Aidlin Darling Design.
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The only remaining parallel to Disneyland is Mondavi’s scale: The winery, which felt increasingly old-fashioned, now appears as a sprawling, glass-walled tech campus seemingly uprooted from Silicon Valley and dropped in the middle of a vineyard. No part of the estate was left untouched — even the iconic arch and tower were painstakingly restored — while several new buildings and outdoor spaces were constructed, making it appear double the original size. Unlike before, Mondavi’s famed To Kalon vineyard is the focal point of the property, viewable from nearly every vantage point, while the design pays homage to the winery’s six decades of history without getting hokey. If Robert Mondavi, a marketing mastermind who died in 2008, were here today, it’s easy to imagine that his vision for the next era of Mondavi might look something like this: majestic, vast and the first of its kind.
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The renovation merged Mondavi’s original architecture with new, modern construction.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Visitors enter through the arch and the original “Visitors Welcome” sign to check in. Their visit begins in a casual living room designed to resemble Mondavi’s former living space, featuring a gallery wall of old family and winery photos. The room curves around to a large basalt tasting bar with a view of the vineyard and Hwy 29. It’s here, where the original structures merge with the new construction, that the “nexus of old and new” begins, Darling said.
Outside, a covered outdoor lounge connects to a completely new wing designed for culinary experiences. Mondavi was one of the first Napa Valley wineries to integrate food into its tastings and inaugurated a “Great Chefs” program, hosting Julia Child and Alice Waters, among others. The new Mondavi Table experience ($95), which includes a three-course, family-style feast alongside wines, costs less than many other Napa Valley food and wine experiences. (The nearby Cakebread Cellars, for example, charges $125 for a tasting with four “bites.”)
This new wing has dining tables set in a posh veranda, which leads into a grand room with floor-to-ceiling windows and earthen walls made from construction waste and gravel, a nod to the vineyard terroir. An expansive terrace overlooks the vines.
An outdoor terrace looks over the vineyard.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
On the other side of the garden, the north wing includes a wine library with old bottles and artifacts, plus a tiny, hidden tasting space inside the bell tower, which was once used as a storage room. There are also private tasting spaces for Constellation’s To Kalon Collective, featuring the Schrader, Double Diamond and To Kalon Vineyard Company brands, which don’t have their own tasting rooms. Outside, private cabanas offer small groups a space to sip and relax.
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Not all visitors will get to see the impressive new winery, which was modernized with the latest high-tech winemaking equipment. (For that, you’ll need to book the Legend Tasting and Tour, $150.) The showpiece is the mezzanine, where a catwalk takes visitors above the working winery and ends at a panoramic view of the vineyards and Mayacamas mountains. The ceiling is artfully covered in wine staves, repurposed from Mondavi’s former oak wine tanks; look closely, and you can see the peg holes. These staves were used for various walls and ceilings throughout the property. “It keeps the soul of this room and how it was originally built,” said Mondavi head winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara, adding that the winery’s new “bells and whistles” will enable his team to “unlock a bit more potential in our vineyards” and thus improve the quality of the wines.
Mondavi is far from the first classic Napa Valley winery to undergo a major renovation. If anything, it is late, trailing behind a swath of others, including Charles Krug (owned by Mondavi’s brother Peter’s family), Clos Du Val, Louis M. Martini, Heitz, V. Sattui and Stony Hill. All of those undertakings were flashy and expensive, but none have been quite as ambitious as Mondavi’s. Constellation would not provide details on the cost of the renovation, but the figure is likely in the hundreds of millions.
A private tasting space for large groups is set within a barrel room.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
The reopening comes at a time of distress, not only for the wine business but also for Constellation, and could serve as a testament to the company’s commitment to the premium side of the wine business, which also includes Napa Valley brands Schrader and Prisoner Wine Co. Constellation began the design process in 2020, a few years before the wine industry entered a global crisis. Six years later, wine consumption, sales, and tourism have steadily declined, and Constellation has been actively divesting from the wine business.
In 2021, the company offloaded 30 of its lower-priced brands to Gallo for $810 million. Last April, it sold the remainder to its entry-level brands, including Woodbridge and Robert Mondavi Private Selection, both formerly under the Mondavi umbrella, to the Wine Group. In January, it closed a historic Madera production facility and laid off more than 200 workers. Constellation fell from the fifth-largest U.S. wine company in 2025 to the 28th-largest in 2026, according to Wine Business. It’s now more of a titan of the beer business, owning the brand licenses to import and sell Modelo, the top-selling beer in the country, along with Corona and Pacifico. Its wine and spirits segment made up just 9% of fourth-quarter sales, according to an earnings report released last week; during a follow-up analyst call, chief financial officer Garth Hankinson admitted to “tasting room softness in our Napa-based wineries,” according to the Press Democrat.
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The landscaping was also completely transformed during the renovation to better reflect the natural Napa environment.
Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle
Constellation has left cheap wine behind and the new Mondavi, no longer the everyman’s winery, serves as proof. It is undeniably upscale and while it still accepts walk-ins, tastings are less affordable starting at $60 — up from $45 before the closure (but below the regional average). It’s also now only partly family-friendly; children can tag along for the entry-level tasting.
The shift towards luxury was probably necessary for Mondavi to preserve its legacy, even at the cost of some accessibility. Whether or not the arch and tower can continue as Napa Valley’s proverbial gateway remains to be seen. People used to call it “the unofficial Napa Valley Welcome Center,” Mondavi brand director Peggy Hemphill said. “I really hope that can be true again.”
Robert Mondavi Winery. Opens April 20. 7801 St Helena Hwy, Oakville. robertmondaviwinery.com
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