When I met Robert Mondavi he was sitting in his chair in a corner office overlooking the winery and the olive trees below. He rose to shake my hand, his eyes smiling at me. He was short and tanned, a strong-looking 90. His wife Margrit was in the office too — there to fill in the gaps in his story, according to him. “She’s my memory,” he said.

It was November 2003, a few days before Thanksgiving. I was 21, a senior at Stanford, about to graduate in the spring, 68 years after Mondavi had worn his cap and gown on the Farm. And I was there to interview him as part of my research for an unconventional history honors thesis: exploring the rise of the California wine industry.

I’d read Mondavi’s autobiography and several articles about him but I wanted to meet him in person and hear about his life in his voice. I also wanted an excuse to drive up to Napa Valley and do “research.” My roommates were jealous. One of them was writing his thesis on an obscure 16th century English preacher. His research was spent in the library transcribing text from old English. He told me that when someone would ask about his thesis, he’d find himself talking about mine instead. “You know, my roommate is writing his thesis on wine. He’s up in Napa right now, interviewing the most famous winemaker in the state.”

I left Stanford at dawn and drove my rental car north. It was only my second time in Napa, my first time in late fall. Crush had ended less than a month before and the entire valley smelled like fermenting wine in the morning air.

Mondavi’s energy was palpable from the first minute. He told me his stories as if for the first time, leaning forward in his chair, gesturing with both hands and tapping on his desk. His eyes rarely left mine, watching to see if I understood and appreciated. Occasionally he would glance over to Margrit, and she would fill in a detail or correct a date, and then he’d go on, barely breaking stride.

I had a list of questions that became unnecessary after a while: I was with a storyteller who relished looking back. It probably began with a childhood dream, he told me  —a boy’s fantasy about bringing Americans from all over the country to one of his mother’s Sunday lunches. He was convinced they’d go home converted into people who loved good wine and good food. They just didn’t know what they were missing.

Another beginning took place in 1962 when he took the first of his annual trips to Europe, determined to learn the secrets that made French wine so great. What he discovered changed California winemaking forever: French oak barrels, which gave fine wines their subtle flavors and allowed them to age for decades. He picked up dozens of other tricks too, and incorporated them with some of his own “innovations” in winemaking back home—technological advances like stainless steel fermentation tanks, for one. This combination of Old and New World techniques was a model that others in California quickly followed.  The state started producing fine reds and whites, and wine moguls from France and Italy began making their own investigative trips to see what was going on.

Mondavi was proud of the part he played in this success story, but he avoided sounding self-important about it. His real source of pride was the distance that California wine had come. While he had done more than anyone else to put the state’s wine on the map, he’d done it precisely because he wasn’t focused only on his own interests. He was a businessman first, but he was also a visionary and a pioneer. After his “aha” moment in France, for instance, he started importing enough French oak barrels to sell to his competitors so they too could make quality wines that competed with the best in the world.  

But his childhood dream of spreading the good news never left his head: he understood that California wine would remain a niche industry unless Americans changed their drinking habits. Remember, he told me, in the 60s and 70s this was still a country that drank black coffee or milk with dinner.

The story of California wine’s coming of age must be also seen as a story of a transformation of American culture. Mondavi worked hard for decades to publicize his beloved product, and gradually he and other California winemakers saw coffee drinkers switch to wine with their food, and saw millions of party drinkers turn from bourbon or beer to wine.

He said he’d had two ongoing missions throughout his career: to help California make the best wines in the world, and to educate Americans about wine so they would include it in their daily lives. He designed his Napa winery as a wine education center that remains one of California’s best-known meccas for wine tastings and tours. He also founded Copia, the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts. Mondavi said he loved “spreading the word,” telling me that he felt that he was really promoting a way of life.  

And America has changed. We’re living in an age when “Sideways,” a film loaded with wine talk, became a national hit, An age of “two-buck Chuck,” hundreds of wine Web sites, and wine bars in airports all over the country, including one in Dallas where you can sample offerings that, yes, include Texas wines. Who from Mondavi’s generation — or my parents’ generation for that matter — could have seen this coming?

But in 2003, Mondavi acknowledged there was a long way to go. Wine doesn’t suit America’s fast-paced life and its habit of consuming fast food on the run, he said. Wine takes time to make and takes time to drink. You have to store it properly, you have to let it breathe. It asks you to slow down, he told me, and maybe that’s something most Americans can’t do. He talked about American families eating dinners in front of the TV and of America’s increasing workweek and endless commutes. How could wine find room in a world like this?  

He said that one measure was the key: Would American wine consumption ever approach the levels in Europe? That would be a sign that Americans are adopting new ways of looking at food and drink, he told me, and that they’re slowing down their lives. “Do you see it happening?” I asked. He spread his hands and sighed. Not yet and maybe never.  In the early years of the new millennium there wasn’t enough evidence to convince him that the country was taking that kind of turn.

“But who knows? The wine industry is 8,000 years old, and we’re just beginning to understand what the hell it’s all about,” he said. He laughed then and pointed at me: “You know, you are the future of the industry.”

Me?

I wrote a lot about him in my thesis. I got jobs in wine tasting rooms, and selected whites and reds and roses from brokers for wine bars. I held wine tastings for my friends and became a part-time sommelier at a fine restaurant in Washington where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sometimes eat  — sitting at the same special table on different nights. But after hearing Robert Mondavi’s stories, I knew I’d always be a rookie, an amateur.

I sent him a note of appreciation after I left him. It wasn’t much because I was in a hurry: the thesis was due, graduation was coming up, my college friends were leaving for all parts of the world. At the time, I took my meeting with him for granted. But over the years, whenever I talk about my time at Stanford or my interest in wine, that morning with Mondavi almost always comes up.

Michael Zakaras lives in Washington DC and can be reached at zakaras@gmail.com.