Robert Mondavi limped into the white tent, leaning heavily on his cane as his wife, Margrit, gently guided him to his seat at the front. He was still an icon but in the past year had come to seem physically smaller than he had been before, shrunken in his stylish clothes. The hearing aid in his left ear could not pierce the cocoon of deafness that surrounded him, and his once-famous charisma had diminished. His mind had begun to slow in a way that alarmed some family members as he was beset by a fog of mental confusion that seemed to be thickening each day. More worrisome, Robert seemed to have lost some of the optimistic spirit that had buoyed him for so many decades.

Anticipating that her husband would tire easily after recent surgeries, Margrit stayed by his side. With her ageless blond effervescence, she offered friends a smile and a cheek to kiss as the couple waited for the bidding to begin. In her late seventies, she was a striking woman who carried her small frame with grace. She wore a drawstring linen pantsuit in the color of the Spanish moss that draped the valley’s oaks. Although she had lived in Napa Valley for more than four decades, her English remained softly accented by her childhood in Switzerland.

Auctioneer Fritz Hatton started the day’s bidding.

“Fasten your seatbelts because heeere…weeee…goooo!” whooped Hatton, shuffling sideways across the podium. With his gourmand’s belly spilling out of his trousers and his pianist’s hands sweeping rapidly back and forth as if he were playing arpeggios, Hatton kicked up his heels with a flourish.

Below him, a group of vintners also took flamboyant measures to ramp up the excitement. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Birkenstock sandals, Roger Trinchero, whose family’s Sutter Home Winery first became famous for its easy-to-drink blush zinfandel, whipped out a squirt gun in one hand and a can of silly string in the other. He incited bursts of laughter at his table as he began spraying guests. The air inside the white tent grew warm, as some two thousand wine lovers shifted their attention to the podium as Hatton started the bidding for Lot 11.

“Five thousand, there it is…”

“Ten thousand…”

An awkward silence followed.

The bidding had stalled and hushed tension gripped the crowd. After decades of serving as a global ambassador for Napa Valley wines, promoting them in countless tastings and events, Robert Mondavi had built up deep reservoirs of good will. No one wanted to see the old king humbled by a low sale price for his family’s choicest wines. Yet, the most sophisticated wine buyers were no longer paying top dollar for Robert Mondavi Cabernets. The Mondavi reputation had slid a few years earlier after his younger son Timothy’s winemaking style came under fire from such influential critics as Robert Parker and Wine Spectator’s James Laube. By the late 1990s, wine connoisseurs had moved on to small production cult wines such as Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, and Dalla Valle Vineyards that were wildly expensive --- $200 a bottle was not unusual --- and hard to get.

“Fifteen thousand…”

“Twenty…”

Volunteers with big foam index fingers --- the type that fans wave around at football games --- pointed in the direction of bidders to draw Hatton’s attention to rival paddles. Paddle 253 --- held by Jess Jackson, the 74-year-old proprietor of Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates --- was bidding against paddle 5, held by construction heir Ron Kuhn. A sharp negotiator who had a legal run-in with the Mondavi family a few years earlier, Jackson wore a placidly earnest look on his face. With a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.8 billion, he was one of the wine industry’s few billionaires.

“Forty thousand…”

“Fifty-five thousand…”

Hatton looked around for any bidders to top the previous bid. There were none. Robert seemed confused by the slowing bids. Shadows crossed his face. Would his family suffer further dishonor by such a low price?

“Sold…to Jess and Barbara Jackson! Thank you very much,” exulted Hatton.

Excited volunteers --- known as the Hoopla Committee --- surrounded Jackson, a towering man with a silver crown of hair. Some of them tossed up fluorescent green “Napa Valley Donor Dollars” --- with each bill in the denomination of fifty million dollars, bearing the slogan “In Wine We Trust.” Across the room, Robert Mondavi’s bald dome and aquiline profile was unwavering amidst the flutter of the play money.

Excerpted from The House of Mondavi © Copyright 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler. Reprinted with permission by Gotham. All rights reserved.