In 1986, the Napa Valley Vintners trade group named "12 living legends in the Napa Valley," and the last of those legendary winemakers, Peter Mondavi Sr., died at home on Saturday, a family spokeswoman said Sunday. He was 101. Mondavi ran his family-owned Charles Krug Winery, purchased by his Italian immigrant parents in 1943, from 1976, when his mother died, until his retirement in 2015.
During his long tenure atop one of California's last remaining family-owned wineries, he introduced several innovations that helped transform California's Napa Valley from a jug-wine backwater to a global elite wine region, including aging wine in imported French oak barrels and developing a cold-fermentation process for white wines.
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