David Hirsch, founder of Hirsch Vineyards and one of the pioneers of modern viticulture on the West Sonoma Coast, has died at the age of 81. With him, California loses a strong-willed visionary who believed early in a region that many then considered too cool, windy, and remote for great wines.

Hirsch was born in 1944 in the Bronx, New York. After a brief study and years of traveling, he discovered his passion for Pinot Noir in Burgundy in the 1970s and the idea that great wines are inseparably linked to their place of origin. In 1978, he bought a remote sheep farm near Fort Ross, just a few kilometers from the Pacific. Two years later, he planted the first vines there. From the initially small vineyard, a business developed whose Pinot Noir and Chardonnay gained international recognition.

The conditions were extreme: fog, wind, and highly variable soils along the San Andreas Fault. Hirsch therefore divided his vineyards into numerous small parcels and managed them individually. He himself referred to it as the "earthquake terroir.".

From the 1990s, he sold grapes to renowned producers like Williams Selyem, Kistler, and Littorai. Their wines made the name Hirsch and the potential of the West Sonoma Coast known worldwide. It wasn't until 2002 that he finally founded his own winery.

Even a serious tractor accident in 2014, after which he remained paralyzed, did not keep him away from the vineyard. With a hand-controlled vehicle, he returned and continued to work on his life's work. Since 2019, his daughter Jasmine Hirsch has been responsible for winemaking.

(ru – Image: Erik Castro)