On April 20, 2026, Robert Mondavi Winery reopened its Oakville estate after a three-year transformation timed to its 60th anniversary. Founded in 1966, the winery is the property that, more than any other, taught America to take Napa Valley seriously. A reopening on this scale, at this milestone, is the valley's most significant estate news of the year. Mondavi founded the winery in 1966 after leaving his family's Charles Krug, and spent the following decades as Napa's most visible ambassador, championing varietal labeling, French oak, and cold fermentation when all three were unfashionable. The estate is a landmark in the truest sense: the arch and tower are among the most photographed structures in wine country.
The architecture
Cliff May's emblematic arch and tower, the mission-style silhouette that has announced the Oakville estate for six decades, were carefully restored as part of the project. New architecture comes from Aidlin Darling Design, with landscape architecture by Surfacedesign. Constellation Brands calls it the most significant transformation of the property since the winery's founding in 1966. The brief was clearly reverence with modernization: keep the landmark legible, rebuild everything around it to contemporary standards.
What's new
The transformation adds a new hospitality wing, expanded indoor-outdoor tasting experiences, upgraded culinary offerings, and modernized winemaking facilities. The hospitality wing is the key move: the estate's visitor program now has the space and structure to match the reputation of the wines. Indoor-outdoor tasting takes proper advantage of the Oakville setting, and the culinary upgrades bring the food program up to the level the anniversary demands. Three years is a long closure for a property this visited, and the scale of the work, hospitality wing, tasting experiences, culinary program, winemaking facilities, confirms the ambition. This was not a renovation. It was a rebuilding.
The To Kalon Collective
New on site is the To Kalon Collective, offering tastings of To Kalon Vineyard wines under the Robert Mondavi Winery, To Kalon Vineyard Company, Schrader Cellars, and Double Diamond labels. To Kalon is among the most storied vineyard names in Napa, and a dedicated tasting of its wines across four labels is a serious draw for collectors. It gives the reopened estate a flagship experience with genuine depth. For collectors, it is the rare tasting that functions as both education and acquisition: the wines are the argument, and the setting, a restored landmark on its 60th anniversary, supplies the occasion.
The anniversary bottle
The reopening is commemorated with a limited-edition 60th anniversary Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon at $125, sold at the winery and through select U.S. retail partners. Anniversary bottlings are often souvenirs; given the source, this one is worth taking seriously as a wine in its own right.
The estate sits in the heart of Oakville, an easy anchor for a day built around the valley's benchmark Cabernets. Read how tasting actually works before you go, and pair the visit with a stay from our Auberge du Soleil feature, still the valley's benchmark address.