YOUNTVILLE, Calif., May 16 (UPI) -- Robert Mondavi, a pioneer in California's wine industry, died Friday at his home in Yountville, Calif., a spokeswoman said.

The Napa Valley vintner was 94, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Though Mondavi had little formal training in winemaking, he is credited with the invention of fume blanc in the 1960s, and with popularizing chardonnay.

He is also known for philanthropic contributions, including an opera house in Napa, Calif., the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at the University of California at Davis, and for Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa.

"He has probably been the most important figure in the wine industry in the last half of this century," Paul Gillette, then-publisher of the Wine Investor newsletter, told The New York Times in 1990.

Robert Gerald Mondavi was born June 18, 1913, in Virginia, Minn.