How do you renovate Napa Valley’s most iconic winery? Carefully. For more than two years, Constellation has been overhauling Robert Mondavi Winery, spending millions of dollars to update the facility that Mondavi himself opened in 1966. But changing a winery that has become symbolic of Napa Valley over the past six decades is a treacherous task.
The original Mondavi winery was envisioned by famed designer Clifford May, famous for his California ranch-style homes and West Coast interpretation of midcentury modern. When he asked Robert Mondavi in the mid-60s what he hoped for, the vintner said a winery that felt like a home, not a factory.
[article-img-container][src=2025-12/ns_mondavi-design-vine-view-120925_1600.jpg] [credit= (Courtesy of Adam Rouse)] [alt= Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley under renovation.] [end: article-img-container]
The winery’s iconic arch and tower is the gateway to that home, channeling a modern version of the missions and ranches built by the Spanish up and down California in the 1800s. Guests walking through the arch were greeted with two verandas stretching toward the vines of To Kalon and the Mayacamas mountains.
The company rapidly expanded over the next three decades, and as it grew in both production and tourism, the buildings were expanded and redesigned multiple times. A big focus of the renovation is to take away what was added and build new structures that feel in the same spirit as the original.
[article-img-container][src=2025-12/ns_mondavi-design-stone-120925_1600.jpg] [credit= (Courtesy of Aidlin Darling Design)] [alt= Concrete reused at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley under renovation.] [end: article-img-container]
“What we wanted to do was honor the legacy of Clifford May and Robert Mondavi,” says David Darling, lead architect on the project and co-founder of Aidlin Darling Design. “They changed the game in Napa. But over the years, the winery grew and, as all wineries do, it grew in an ad hoc fashion. So this project was an opportunity to step back and reevaluate.”
Aidlin Darling Design and landscape designer Surfacedesign are working to channel the spirit of the original. A big part of that is incorporating as many elements of the original 1966 property as possible, while eliminating buildings that were added later in a more haphazard style.
[article-img-container][src=2025-12/ns_mondavi-design-oak-120925_1600.jpg] [credit= (Courtesy of Aidlin Darling Design)] [alt= Oak stave reused at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley under renovation.] [end: article-img-container]
The arch and tower, which Mondavi loved so much he put them on the label, aren’t going anywhere. “We stripped things back to the essence, which was really simple,” says Darling. “It was a tower, so people could find it, and then an arch to welcome them in.” And what has been knocked down is being repurposed. New earthen walls, made by combining local soils and concrete rubble from demolished structures, stretch from the arch to two new buildings—a hospitality wing and a production wing. The hospitality wing features a roofline that plays off both the arch and the Mayacamas.
More old concrete and stone has been recycled into various elements of the new property, including paths through local vegetation now being planted, replacing the thirsty lawns that originally covered much of the grounds.
[article-img-container][src=2025-12/ns_mondavi-design-tiles-120925_1600.jpg] [credit= (Courtesy of Adam Rouse)] [alt= Kitchen tiles reused at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley under renovation.] [end: article-img-container]
Guests walking through the hospitality wing can find another piece of the old winery if they look up—the oak staves of the old fermentation vats have been turned into ceilings in both that building and the new To Kalon cellar, where winemaker Kurtis Ogasawara and his team are producing the winery’s more premium bottlings. “You see a beautiful ceiling, but it has wine stains that broadcast its former life as a tank,” says Darling.
While Mondavi and his wife Margrit are gone, their influence remains. The team has used ceramic tiles hand-painted by Margrit in the new kitchen. And by the arch, guests will be able to enjoy a stone bench where the couple often liked to meet and enjoy the sun setting over the Mayacamas. “You see the old and the new,” says Darling. “The legibility of old and new is really important to us.”
The winery will reopen to the public in May 2026.
[article-img-container][src=2025-12/ns_mondavi-design-winery-120925_1600.jpg] [credit= (Courtesy of Robert Mondavi Winery)] [alt= The new winery at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley under renovation.] [end: article-img-container]
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