Sep. 20--California vintner Robert Mondavi, a Lodi High School graduate who once spent summers nailing together grape crates, and his wife, Magrit, announced Wednesday a gift of $35 million to the University of California, Davis. 

That personal gift includes $25 million to establish a new wine and food institute and $10 million to name the university's performing arts center, already under construction. 

It is the largest private donation ever given to UC Davis and is among the most generous gifts from an individual in the history of the University of California system. 

Gov. Gray Davis, who attended the announcement, said the gift will "unleash the creative skills of UC Davis students for generations to come." 

Robert Mondavi said he was excited by the chance to realize the couple's passion for boosting the place of wine, food and arts in people's lives. 

"This is amazing!" he said during an interview at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville. "This is falling in with what we always felt: wine, food and art enhances the quality of life. And that's exactly what's taking place at the university." 

UC officials said the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science will consolidate the university's teaching and research programs � including the departments of viticulture and enology, and food science and technology � in one facility. It will include a 75,000-square-foot building for classrooms, laboratories, offices and conference space; a 13,000-square-foot food-processing plant; and a 36,000-square-foot teaching and research winery. 

When completed, the institute is expected to house the world's largest wine and food science academic program. 

The Mondavis' gift will be combined with about $35.5 million in UC funds and other private contributions to underwrite the project expected to total $73 million. Planning is under way, with groundbreaking expected in 2004. 

With the most recent gift, the $30 million fund-raising campaign for the Robert and Magrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts is just $2 million from its goal. Overall, the project is expected to cost $60.9 million, including $53.5 million for construction and $7.4 million for an initial endowment and startup costs. 

The center is expected to host its premiere performance in October 2002. 

While Robert Mondavi did not attend UC Davis, he credits the university with contributing greatly to the development of the California wine industry. In particular he regarded The Technology of Wine Making, by UC enologists Albert Winkler and Maynard Amerine, as a vintner's bible. 

"I learned to make wine only because I followed that book so religiously. I succeeded because of that," he said. 

Mondavi joined the family wine business after graduating from Stanford University. At Lodi High, he was an honor student, senior-class president, captain of the swimming team, member of the yearbook staff, Chemistry Club and fullback on the school`s championship football team. 

He moved to Lodi with his family at age 10. 

While Mondavi's winery is based in the Napa Valley, where it produces its top-end, limited-edition vintages, its largest production facility is the Mondavi Woodbridge Winery in Lodi. That facility produces about 7 million cases a year and is Mondavi's main distribution center. 

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(c) 2001, The Record, Stockton, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MOND,