Wine and Cheese Are on Table for New Disney Park

Robert Mondavi Winery, the quintessential promoter of California wine, said Thursday it is moving in next door to the Happiest Place on Earth.

The Napa Valley winery is the first outside sponsor of an attraction at Walt Disney Co.’s new theme park, California Adventure, which opens in Anaheim beside Disneyland in 2001.

Angled more toward adults than Disneyland, the park is part of efforts by Disney and Anaheim to make the city a multiple-day stop for more tourists.

Mondavi will build a $10-million “wine country experience” on one acre of the 55-acre park, with educational films, wine-tasting areas and grapevines. No wine will be made on the premises.

Customers will be able to purchase bottles and cases of wine, but will have to pick them up at a site outside the park.

Officials said age checks and monitoring of customers’ behavior will be tight.

“It’s the same thing we do at the winery,” said Greg Brady, Mondavi’s vice president for new business. “We don’t like to see anyone getting out of control.”

Disneyland has never served alcoholic beverages to the general public, though they are available at the members-only Club 33 in the New Orleans Square area of the park. The no-alcohol policy will continue in the original park.

At the new park, the Mondavi facility will be in a section called The Golden State, which will focus on California culture. The park likely will include places to buy micro-brewed beers, Mexican food and other California culinary staples to complement the winery’s offerings, sources said.

Those wishing to sample Mondavi’s better Napa Valley and Reserve wines, along with fancy hors d’oeuvres like foie gras, can book groups into an upstairs room similar to a private testing room at the Mondavi winery in Oakville.

The wine-food tastings will run about $20 upstairs and $10 downstairs, where customers will sit on a patio to enjoy their purchases, Mondavi officials said.

Mondavi has led the industry in promoting wine as a healthy part of everyday life, including labels that mention biblical references to wine. The company is no stranger to Orange County, where it hosts weddings, private parties and educational gatherings at a wine and food center in Costa Mesa.

With 7.5 million visitors expected annually at California Adventure, the new park seemed a good way to extend the franchise, said Chief Executive Michael Mondavi.

“Our belief is that Disney is probably the best communicator in the world, and we think that the California wine industry, and Robert Mondavi in particular, have a great story to tell,” Mondavi said.

For Disney, the inclusion of Mondavi furthers a long expansion into more adult-oriented ventures, ranging from the often controversial Miramax film studio to cruise ships to upscale restaurants like California Grill at the Disney World complex in Florida.

Indeed, Michael Mondavi said the California Grill, with its high-quality food and wine, helped persuade him to team his highly regarded winery with a company still better known to many for popcorn and Carnation ice cream on an ersatz Main Street.

Mondavi will pay Disney an undisclosed fee under terms of its 10-year contract, which it has the option to extend. Michael Mondavi said the deal is expected to be profitable for the winery as well. “Even if it cost us money every year, it would be a good deal” because of the exposure, he said.

Disney observers said the deal is a natural, given the importance of wine to California’s image.

“They’re the perfect core tenant for Disney’s Golden State,” said PaineWebber analyst Christopher Dixon.

Persuading other corporations to become sponsors and partners at its parks has been part of Disney’s strategy from the beginning.

Walt Disney biographer Bob Thomas, who first met Walt Disney during World War II, recalled that when Disneyland first opened, Tomorrowland looked empty because it had yet to attract sponsors, unlike the many vendors who took up space in Fantasyland, Adventureland and Main Street.

Thomas also recalled that Disney had strongly opposed serving alcohol at his original park. “I like a drink,” Thomas quoted Disney as saying. “But if people want one they can get it elsewhere--not in my park.”

Disney might well have understood the serving of alcohol at a separate park in this day and age, however. “He was pliable,” Thomas said.

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Napa in Anaheim

Napa Valley’s prominent Robert Mondavi Winery plans to open a wine education and tasting area at Disney’s California Adventure, which opens in 2001. It won’t be an actual winery, but customers can taste all of Mondavi’s California wines and buy bottles or cases.

Source: Walt Disney Co.