Famous Royalty Can Distort Reality

The Queen of England, Taylor Swift, Margrit Mondavi, President Zelenskyy

Its Super Bowl Sunday, I’m excited for the commercials and I am writing this during the first half, hoping to hit send before half-time.  All I am reading and hearing is how Swiifties are such a significant and massive haloeffect that it is increasing viewership to unprecedented levels and that ads in Super Bowl are now at historic levels.   Likewise, standing ovations for Zelenskyy when he addressed Congress, both sides of the aisle clamoring to get close to the ex-comedian turned celebrity defender of the West (yet, this month, unable to get any US funding cause of Trump).   And the Queen, tea, crumpets, and all that fuse around the Royal family--remarkable on so many levels.    It can become borderline pathological idol worship. 

This brings me to my point and Margrit Mondavi--the Grande dame of the Napa Valley and who was a famously influential part of California’s wine movement.  She passed away at 91 years young in 2016, a few years after I had the honor to meet, have dinner at her home, and get fully seduced by the “royalty effect” of her lineage, her name, the historical significance of who she was, that I got swept up in the halo of Mondavi’s Napa.  Like a good Swiftie, I came and prayed at the alter--her ask was my command.  

Her ask in 2012 was that we take over the historic Napa Valley Opera House which the Mondavi Family had put 15 million in to restore, seismically support, and have it become the cultural center of wine country.  But her venue non-profit was not successful and thus she was convincing me, along with the Mayor of Napa, and others to take over this crown cultural jewel of Napa.    It was originally built in 1880 for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan, and during the height of vaudeville it flourished.   How could I say no.    In 2014, we opened City Winery Napa.  It was open for a whole year and a few months until we had to shut it down.   Even though one of my sons said to me, “Dad, I thought City Winery needed to be in a “City”, not a small village like Napa”, I ignored that for all kinds of “strategic” reasons. 

I originally thought that with the 5.5 million wine tourists coming to Napa every year, from the targeted markets across the country that we wanted to open, this was our perfect audience.  We would program great talent and everyone in the wine industry would take notice.  Strategically, I thought, some of the greatest vineyards and wineries will give us rare access to the grapes we need to buy to make wine in all our markets.   And finally, I studied the wedding industry with 3000 weddings a year in the Valley, most of them outside in the vineyards, some of them will want to host their special day inside in case of rain.  Not every day can be sunny, I thought, with climate change.

We opened and very quickly started selling out our shows.   Tickets were moving fast, about 75% tourists and 25% locals, many of the locals being connected to the wine business.  I was psyched.  But very quickly we recognized a pretty pretty big fly in the ointment.  None of the wine tourists were drinking.  75% of the room came at 8pm for the show and they all ordered water or soft-drinks.  They had been out drinking all day, all they wanted to do was hydrate.  And the 25% of the wine industry, well, it’s very hard to tell Bill Harlan or any winemaker who brings a bottle of their wine to share with their fellow wine makers, they can’t and need to buy a bottle of City Winery produced juice.  In fact, we can’t even charge a corkage fee to a potential colleague who we want to do business with.  So, the only people drinking were locals who we barely could charge.   Our per head sales were horrible, and since we give almost all the box office sales to the artists, we were going to go broke very quickly.  And in fact, that first year, we lost more than a million dollars trying to bring coal to Manchester. 

We closed in less than 18 months, locals not happy with the improvements to the old Opera House we made, others upset that we were not a non-profit, etc. etc.  Big mistake, lesson learned, will hopefully not make that location decision error again.  But I have another point to make.  

I didn’t have my arm twisted, forced or coerced into it.  The opportunity seemed real.  But how much influence did the Mondavi legacy influence my decision making?  How did the historic connection to this 130-year-old Opera House and our take-over influence my brain synapses?  It did, like Taylor Swift, the royalty of Napa had a real effect.   Like Arnold and Danny DeVito in the commercial I just saw and is my current favorite of the Super Bowl, I’m clearly moving my insurance to State Farm.  Famous royalty does have an effect!