Winemaker David Hirsch, Influential Sonoma Coast Vineyards Founder, Dies at 81

David Hirsch, proprietor of Hirsch Vineyards, died on Tuesday of respiratory failure in Santa Rosa, California at age 81. Over a 45‑year second career as a vineyard owner in west Sonoma County, Hirsch transformed a remote windswept coastal area into one of the premier sources of Pinot Noir in California and possibly the world.

Born in New York in 1944, Hirsch left Columbia after a few semesters, traveled across the United States and worked in the garment industry before buying an 860‑acre sheep ranch near Fort Ross in 1978. He pursued an ambitious ecological restoration of the land, planting a small test plot of Pinot Noir and developing a long‑term vision for the property, which his daughter Jasmine Hirsch described as a “200‑year plan.”