Robert Mondavi Dies at 94

From the NYT obit:

Under Mr. Mondavi, the winery grew into a $500 million-a-year business as it introduced to the United States European winemaking techniques like the use of French oak aging barrels and stainless-steel fermentation tanks.

An Italian immigrant’s son, Bob Mondavi, as he chose to be called, battled puritanical tradition, a hidebound wine industry, a skeptical public and even opposition within his own family as he fashioned himself into a symbol of America’s mid-century affluence and cultural coming of age.

With other promoters of good living like Julia Child and Alice Waters, he tried to lead the country away from shopworn Old World ways, insisting that Americans were second to none in creating elegance and enjoying it. Few did that better than he: he lived like royalty.