Of all the recent blog posts and news articles on the passing of Robert Mondavi, it is the personal stories that recount connections made by meeting Mondavi or experiencing his wines that are the most captivating and inspiring.

These stories demonstrate the rewards that come in getting to know the people behind the wine they craft. They also show how certain wines can create connections to periods and places in our lives that will remain with us for decades to come.

As to understanding the person behind the wine, two bloggers on opposite coasts described similar experiences when meeting Robert Mondavi. Andy Perdue of The Wine Knows offers an interesting glimpse of Robert Mondavi in his later years. Andy had the opportunity to meet and dine with Robert at the Mondavi winery in 2004:

Mondavi looked up at me...offered me a broad smile and shook my hand...for that brief moment, he treated me like an old friend. In that instant, I understood why he was so successful in life. His charisma and charm shone through. I could see why people wanted to be around him, to work with him, to follow him.

And Thor Iverson of oenoLogic provides an interesting tale of dining with Robert, his wife, Margrit, and Julia Child, while attending an event celebrating Mondavi wines at a Boston restaurant:

When Mondavi looked at me, shook my hand, said a few words, I felt the force of his will...The energy flowing from this fairly slight man was, unmistakable, and seemingly undimmed by age. Up close, he seemed larger, stronger, more alive.

It is interesting how much in common these two meetings had for each writer, even though they were separated by both place and time.

But no other account of Robert Mondavi seems more personal than the inspiring piece written by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, a couple who write a regular wine column for The Wall Street Journal. In their article, "A Toast to a Pioneer", Dorothy and John recount their first trip traveling together to California in the early 1970s, with the goal of visiting Robert Mondavi Winery.

Before getting to the Napa-based winery, they enjoyed some of Robert Mondavi's wines while dining in San Francisco. One bottle in particular, the 1974 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, stood out as an important milestone toward understanding California wine in a more meaningful way.

From that point forward, they opened a bottle of Mondavi's 1974 cab on their anniversary. But their story of Mondavi wine goes beyond just this one bottle, for it encompassed a much larger context surrounding their wine experiences.

Here is how they describe the critical role Mondavi played in the evolution of both personal and collective tastes toward wine in the 1970s:

They were democratic wines, and democratic in the best sense. They were wines that we could reach, but they made us stretch a little, think a little, grow a little. When we opened a Mondavi wine, we felt we were taking a step. Before we knew it, we -- and a great number of other Americans -- had stepped right into the modern world of wine.

Mondavi's passing serves to remind us of the varied connections that come with wine and how these can remain after so many years. Even for folks like me who came to appreciate wine well past the peak of Mondavi's efforts, there is reason to honor this man for not only the impact he had on so many lives, but the influence he continues to have on the wine we drink today.