Margrit Mondavi
| Margrit Mondavi | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
August 2, 1925 Appenzell, Switzerland |
| Died | September 2, 2016 (aged 91) Napa, California, U.S. |
| Children | Philip Biever Jr Annie Biever Phoebe Biever |
Margrit (née Kellenberger) Biever Mondavi (August 2, 1925 – September 2, 2016) was a Swiss-born American businesswoman. She was Vice President of Cultural Affairs at Robert Mondavi Winery which she joined in 1967. Under her direction, Robert Mondavi Winery developed original cultural and culinary arts programs. First marriage: Capt. Philip Biever an Army captain from the United States. In 1980, she married Robert Mondavi and worked with him in many of his philanthropic activities including the founding of the museum Copia. Margrit played a key role in securing the downtown Napa location for the center, which opened in November 2001. She died of stomach cancer on September 2, 2016.
A native of Appenzell, Switzerland, Margrit Kellenberger was raised in her family home overlooking Lake Maggiore, in the canton of Ticino.
By the end of World War II, Margrit met Capt. Philip Biever an Army captain from the United States. Following a brief courtship they were married in the Church of Madonna del Sasso on a wooded hillside above the city of Locarno. The newlyweds settled in her husband’s new duty station, North Dakota, and started a family that includes three children — Philip Jr., Annie and Phoebe. Following several more moves around the country, the Bievers settled in the Napa Valley in 1960.
After volunteering to help organize a concert at the Charles Krug Winery, she was hired by the winery and became the first female tour guide in the Napa Valley. Although the Krug Winery was owned by the Mondavi family, she did not meet her future husband Robert Mondavi until after he broke away from the family and started his own winery in 1966. Biever joined the Mondavi Winery the following year when she was hired as director of public relations. Mondavi and Biever had a long time affair and eventually divorced their first spouses in the late 1970s. Robert Mondavi and Margrit were married in Palm Springs in 1980
When Margrit started working at Robert Mondavi Winery, there were very few visitors frequenting Napa Valley. One of the first things Margrit did was establish a fine arts program at the winery that brought many different artists to the winery including Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud and Nathan Oliveira.
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