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realized that unless they understood what we were trying to do, we would not get the kind of wines we wanted. Teiser:
Did Andre Tchelistchef f bring some concept of European styles of wine?
Mondavi:
Andre Tchelistchef f was a man that I used to give me the whole concept. We did all of his research work. We knew that he had all the background, having gone through enology school in Europe. We knew he was one of the outstanding producers of wine here. Whatever he wanted to do, I listened to it. And I adopted the principles, whereas I could do things that he couldn't do because we owned our winery, and would try everything. He was the one that came in with many ideas. And very frankly, he was very, very helpful to me in trying I tried all these things. different things. And I did. Then we would taste the wine after we did that. And that encouraged him to do many things since we were free to experiment, and at B. V. he did not have that liberty. However, he profited by this, and so We did we. And we were happy to do it. It was an exchange. at Charles were, Krug, really the research phase of winemaking here.
Not only that, I called AndrH to form the Napa Valley I said, "Andre, why don't we form a group of Technical Group. Let's people? bring in Louis Martini, Inglenook, Beringer Brothers. Let's have a little seminar, a group where we would meet and exchange the ideas of winemaking so that we can further the cause of winemaking by all of us." I was very open to these things.
We called the meetings together. After about the third meeting, one or two of the people said, "Gee, we're giving away all our secrets." I said, "Oooh!" Then I lost interest because all they wanted to do was to have the ABCs of winemaking. They didn't want to get into the detail of what to do. Then the Napa Valley Technical Group became what I called, for a number of years, an eating group where you got together and discussed superficial We things, but not getting into the real heart of the things. went to the meetings, but frankly, they weren't as effective as they should have been. So I carried on my own work, my own research work within our own group. That's why we have done all of our research work. And we have been very open. And I think if you travel around you'll find that people will realize that we have been open. We have a lot of concern about our research work that we carry on. We are to talk to about it. There is no one that will do willing people the kind of near research work that we do here.* anywhere right But we used to do it over there then and I wanted to exchange
*At the Robert Mondavi Winery.