Obituaries

Michael Benedict is a renowned botanist and vineyard pioneer who changed Santa Barbara County's wine industry. He was  83 of melanoma.  He co-founded Sanford & Benedict Vineyard in 1971.  You can read a profile here.   Don St. Pierre Sr., who won fame with importer and distributor ASC Fine

Sir Ivan Menezes, CEO of Diageo for the past decade, died Wednesday after a brief illness. He was 64. Menezes was present at the creation of Diageo plc, and over 25 years crafted Diageo to become "one of the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer companies," Javier

Clarke began writing about wine, food and travel in 1984 when he founded Foothill Wine Press, which evolved into the California Wine Press, In 1993, he created California Wine and Food, a print magazine that later became an Internet publication. More recently he published Taste California Travel and Taste Washington

In 1973, John C. Cushman III, along with five friends, established Zaca Mesa as the third winery in all of Santa Barbara County. The winery gained prominence in 1978 when it became the first to plant Syrah in Santa Barbara County, and was instrumental in launching the Santa Barbara Rhône

In 1951, Alfred G. Scheid hitchhiked out of the coal mining town of Bridgeport, Ohio, with $42 in his pocket.  After jobs in a steel mill and a coal factory, joined the Navy and, with the Korean War raging. was stationed at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in Southern California.

His wife's parents owned Larkmead Vineyards, a 150-acre estate in Napa Valley. When Katharine (Kate) Solari's parents passed away in 1993, Cam and Kate, who had married in 1961, became the proprietors and took great pride and joy in reestablishing Larkmead Vineyards as a historic and

He was born in Jera, Italy, and working as an architect when he moved to the U.S. at age 29 in 1979, settled in Sonoma County.  He became a cook at The Villa, an Italian restaurant in Santa Rosa owned by his uncle, for 12 years. In 1994, he

He served as international director of marketing from 1988 to 2008.  He was a key player in reviving FIVS, as well as other wine-related bodies including the World Wine Trade Group.

Angelo Sangiacomo, a founding partner of Sangiacomo Family Vineyards, died at home Feb. 27, 2023.  He was 92. He oversaw the expansion of Sangiacomo Family Vineyards to its current status as one of the largest family-owned, premium winegrowing businesses in California with over 1,600 acres of vineyards in Sonoma

Donald M. Hess, founder of The Hess Collector and art collector, passed away peacefully in Bern, Switzerland, on Jan. 30, 2023, at 86.  He built an iconic mineral water company, along with esteemed sustainably focused wineries in Napa and Argentina, in a career that spanned almost 60 years. Arriving in