Peter Mondavi Sr., a legendary winemaker whose family helped put California vintages on the map, has died. He was 101. 
 
 Mr. Mondavi died of natural causes at his home in St. Helena, Calif., on Saturday night, family spokeswoman Wendy Lane said Sunday. 
 
 He had retired in 2015 as president and chief executive officer of Charles Krug Winery,... 

 The news came over the weekend that Peter Mondavi had died, at the age of 101. Son of Cesare Mondavi and brother of Robert Mondavi, Peter owned Charles Krug Winery in the Napa Valley with his family since the early 1940s, with Peter serving as the winemaker from 1944 to 1961. 
 
 Robert left the family business and started his own winery in 1966, in the process changing the history of winemaking in the Napa Valley and in all of California. 
 
 Peter was far less the showman than his flamboyant brother, but in many ways he was as innovative, as steadfast and as dedicated to establishing Napa as one of the world’s premier wine regions. 
 
 It was Peter, and not Robert, who drew the Napa Valley’s oldest commercial winery out of its post-Prohibition decrepitude and reestablished careful winemaking practices, acquiring important properties up and down the Valley floor. It was Peter who replaced the traditional redwood tanks at Charles Krug with French oak barrels, a rarity and an extravagance at the time, but one that the entire valley eventually adopted. 
 
 Through the '60s and '70s, Peter Mondavi and his family managed an ever-growing empire under the Charles Krug umbrella, a brand that, like that of his more famous sibling, became synonymous with tradition and quality. 
 
 Handsome, soft-spoken, devoted to his family, Peter Mondavi retired, at least officially, only last year. He is in the Culinary Institute of America’s Vintner’s Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the Napa Valley Vintners’ Lifetime Achievement Award. Owing to his age, he has had more "living legend" citations than perhaps any winemaker alive. 
 
 But his greatest achievement, he liked to say, was to establish and sustain his winery as a family business, steering it through several acquisitive periods in Napa’s history, a fate to which his brother’s winery finally succumbed in 2004. 
 
 Peter's century-plus on earth amounts to a timeline for the most cataclysmic shifts in wine history, where technology, taste and interest in this iconic California beverage advanced at breakneck speed. Mondavi and Krug kept pace, but it remains a brand with a strong sense of tradition, not only in its image but in its wines. 
 
 More than this, Peter Mondavi was one of the last and greatest links to Napa’s past, a visionary winemaker and owner who was instrumental in shepherding the Valley from its earliest roots into the 21st century. The Krug name survives because of him, but the Mondavi name — a shared legacy, to be sure — carries on alongside with equal potency. 
 
 Peter Mondavi Sr. is survived by two sons, Peter Jr. and Marc; and a daughter, Siena. 
 
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 FILE - In this Thursday, May 19, 2005 file photo, Peter Mondavi samples a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon out of the barrel at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, Calif. On Monday, Feb. 22, 2016, a winery... (Associated Press) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As a boy, Peter Mondavi got his start in the California wine business by nailing boxes for his father's grape-shipping business. 
 
 In the decades that followed, he became a Napa Valley innovator as he battled his more famous brother Robert Mondavi for control of his family's Charles Krug Winery. 
 
 He still had his hand in the business when he died Saturday at 101. He credited his stamina to good genes, hard work, pasta Bolognese — and a daily glass of cabernet sauvignon. 
 
 Mondavi died at his home in St. Helena, California, said Wendy Lane Stevens, a member of the C. Mondavi and Family board of directors. 
 
 Peter Mondavi invested a lifetime in building, growing and protecting his family's business. 
 
 A statement released by his family said Mondavi was asked late in life about his proudest accomplishment and said, "Never losing control of our family winery. If I could, I would tell my father: I did the best I could during the difficult years. I was determined and we held on." 
 
 Mondavi began his career at a time when the Napa Valley was known chiefly for cheap wine and witnessed it grow into one of the world's premiere wine regions. 
 
 He played a part in that rise, pioneering a number of improvements to California winemaking, including the use of cold fermentation for white wines and sterile filtration. Charles Krug has been in the hands of the Mondavi family since 1943, when it was purchased by Mondavi's parents, Cesare and Rosa. 
 
 Peter and Robert ran the winery together after Cesare's death in 1959 but were unable to agree on management styles and split, with Robert founding the Robert Mondavi Winery in 1966. Later, the brothers reconciled and in 2005 celebrated their reunion by making a special blend of wine together. 
 
 Peter Mondavi's sons now lead the family business. Marc Mondavi heads the 1.4 million-case CK Mondavi Vineyards division, producer of a popular line of affordable wines, and Peter Jr. leads Charles Krug, producer of premium Napa Valley wines. 
 
 Born Nov. 8, 1914, the youngest of four children, Peter Mondavi moved with his family to Lodi, California, in 1922 so his father could start a business shipping grapes to winemakers back in Minnesota during Prohibition. Peter Mondovi's first job was to assemble and pack 30-pound boxes of grapes. 
 
 He went on to earn a degree in economics from Stanford University in 1937 and was drawn to the wine business, studying enology at the University of California, Berkeley. 
 
 World War II interrupted his career and Mondavi served in the military, returning stateside in 1946. 
 
 In his studies, he had researched the effects of cold fermentation on white and rose wines, which then were being fermented at higher temperatures. The process meant they lost their fruity character through oxidation. He applied what he learned at the winery to make fresher whites. 
 
 Charles Krug also was the first Napa Valley winery to import French oak barrels to use in aging wine, and in 1963 was among the first to vintage-date varietal wines. 
 
 Determined to keep the winery family owned despite corporate buyouts happening throughout the valley, Peter Mondavi worked to preserve the family holdings, investing $24 million over a nine-year period to replant most of the vineyards and farm them sustainably. Today, the Peter Mondavi family owns 850 acres of prime vineyards in the Napa Valley. 
 
 (The Robert Mondavi Winery was sold to Constellation Brands in 2004.) 
 
 Peter Mondavi also took steps to preserve the history of Charles Krug, overseeing the restoration of two landmark buildings — the 1872 Redwood Cellar and the 1881 Carriage House — that are now registered on the National Registry of Historic Places and considered California historical landmarks. His efforts were recognized with the Governor's Historic Preservation Award in 2010. 
 
 After returning from World War II, Mondavi married Blanche Hurtzig, who died in 2010. The couple had three children, Marc, Peter Jr. and a daughter, Siena. They had nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. 
 
 ___ 
 
 This story contains biographical information compiled by former Associated Press Writer Michelle Locke.
– Napa Valley was once known for its cheap wines. Today it's one of the best wine regions in the world—due in part to Peter Mondavi. The wine pioneer who helped put California wines on the map died at his home in St. Helena on Saturday, says a family rep. He was 101. During more than half a century running Charles Krug Winery—which his Italian-immigrant parents bought in 1943—Mondavi adopted sterile filtration, the use of cold fermentation for white wines, and was the first in Napa to import French oak barrels for aging, earning him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Napa Valley Vintners trade group, report the AP and Los Angeles Times. He is also in the Culinary Institute of America's Vintners Hall of Fame. Mondavi's reign as president and CEO of Charles Krug Winery wasn't without controversy. For a time, Mondavi ran the winery with his brother, Robert. After a fistfight in 1965, however, Robert was removed from management and went on to create his own Robert Mondavi Winery, reports the Wall Street Journal. Like many Napa wineries, the Robert Mondavi Winery was eventually bought out, but Peter Mondavi was proud to say that the Charles Krug Winery remained within the family. It's now run by his two sons, though Mondavi retained the titles of president and CEO until last year. He said his energy into old age was thanks to good genes, hard work, pasta Bolognese, and a glass of cabernet sauvignon each day.