It is inevitable that people die. As we become older death is more tangible as our contemporaries, rather than just older relatives, older friends and folks you read about in the newspaper, pass. Professionally, the true impact is felt when you lose colleagues that you know, respect and admire. Recently these losses have been tough on the wine business, as we have lost what seems a large number of folks. Or maybe it’s just that they are people I knew, knew relatively well, and respected even more.

The past few months have taken from us Robert Mondavi, Didier Dageneau, and most recently David Lett. There are others, many others in fact, but these three icons are people whose lives personally touched mine. Words can’t begin to express the loss sustained, and the leadership void that each of these gentlemen leaves in their “back yards” of the Napa Valley, the Loire Valley and the Willamette Valley. All were influential advocates, spokespersons extraordinaire and visionaries for their collective vinous passions. My encounters with them over the years, always excitedly anticipated, were striking, instructive, educational, and memorable.

Even with all of their well documented and deserved success, these pioneers had their critics. I have been in conversations where people would take on one of this threesome for reasons having to do little with anything more than obvious jealousy and petty resentment. Or, that Bob’s, Didier’s and David’s personal styles may have been idiosyncratic and out of the norm. I would always roll my eyes when listening to such buffoonery. Can you imagine where wine would be today without this trio? Sure, Pinot Noir would have eventually arrived in Oregon, site specific terroir - driven wines would have emerged from the eastern Loire and, even without Robert Mondavi, the reality is that wine would have, in due course, been revolutionized in Napa. But it’s almost impossible to imagine how delayed those occurrences may have been, or how less rich our collective experience would be without their guiding hand.

Over the next few weeks I have made a commitment to enjoy a meal including a memorable bottle from each to celebrate just how fortunate I have been having my life touched by such an extraordinary trio of heroic figures.