Mondavi Winery Sets Up Shop in Costa Mesa
The Napa Valley-based Robert Mondavi Winery has leased a building at Harbor Gateway Business Center in Costa Mesa and plans by summer to open a facility aimed at educational events involving wine and food.
The building, to be called Robert Mondavi Wine and Cultural Center, is believed to be the first of its kind by a California winery that is not on or adjacent to its winery property.
In the new facility, Mondavi will offer to corporate groups and professional associations a number of cultural events including concerts, food festivals, and wine educational programs.
A winery spokesman said the building also will house the company’s Southern California offices.
The building is to open in August.
Rodney Strong Vineyards in Sonoma County has formally been sold to Klein Foods Inc., a privately held packaged foods company based in Stockton in a deal valued by industry analysts at about $30 million.
In addition, Strong, who founded the winery almost 30 years ago, said he had reached agreement with Thomas B. Klein, chairman of Klein Foods, to remain with the winery as executive vice president and wine master.
The winery sale, announced in November, included 1,200 acres of prime Sonoma County vineyard land, a telemarketing program, the winery, and the Rodney Strong and Windsor brands.
Since the sale was announced, about 650 acres of the land involved in the deal was sold to Syar Industries of Napa, a gravel dredging company that also farms vineyard land.
Last year about 120,000 cases of Rodney Strong wines were produced as well as about 275,000 cases of wines for the Windsor label sold through a telemarketing division.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has ruled that non-alcoholic beers may now be labeled with the term “near beer” but may not carry the term “beer” in any other form.
The BATF ruled that any malt beverage containing less than .5% alcohol by volume may also be labeled (or advertised) as “malt beverage” or “cereal beverage.”
The agency noted that only beverages that contain no alcohol may use the phrase “alcohol free.”
The agency also ruled that the terms “low alcohol” or “reduced alcohol” may be used for malt beverages that contain less than 2.5% alcohol by volume.
The Skalli Family of France, who own and operate food and wine businesses in France, has announced that the name for its large Napa Valley winery will be St. Supery Vineyards and Winery. The property is named for a former owner of the property.
St. Supery replaces Skalli Atkinson, which had been tentatively chosen as the name for the winery. The Skalli Family food business in France specializes in such staples of the international market as pasta, rice and wine.
Freixenet S.A. of Spain, the world’s largest producer of French-method sparkling wine, said it has signed an agreement with the Yan Tai Chang Yu Pioneer Wine Co. of China to produce sparkling wine in China.
The arrangement calls for about 8,000 cases of wine to be produced initially in China.
Freixenet, which owns the Freixenet, Castellblanch and Sigura Viudas brands in Spain; Henri Abele in France; Dona Dolores in Mexico and Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma County, shipped more than 5.5 million cases of methode champenoise sparkling wines from all its properties in 1988.
“California Is Wine Country” is the title of a 64-page booklet listing 472 California wineries that are open to the public. The booklet, a project of the Wine Institute in San Francisco, also has details of the history, climate and geography of the wine-growing regions.
For a free copy, send a self-addressed business envelope with 45 cents in postage to Wine Institute, 165 Post St., San Francisco 94108.
A more complete work, with excellent maps of the wine-growing regions, is “The Wine Spectator’s Wine Country Guide to California” ($4.95). The 88-page book also has a listing of inns and dining spots in the various regions of the state.
