Pioneer of the California Wine World

Pioneer of the California Wine World. The founder of the winery, the Count of Buena Vista, Agoston Haraszthy de Mokesa, was a vivacious pioneer whose love affair with grape-growing started in his homeland of Hungary. The Count immigrated to the burgeoning American West in 1840 in pursuit of freedom and opportunity. Following the forty-niners in search of gold in the hills of California, Haraszthy sought "purple gold" - the perfect terroir for exceptional wine. He ultimately settled in Sonoma in 1857, founding Buena Vista Winery. , Seeing Sonoma's potential for world class wine, he famously suggested that California would one day become more famous for wine than for gold mines. At Buena Vista, he planted the world's largest vineyard. In 1861, he imported thousands of vines from Europe, representing over 300 varietals. He constructed the first gravity flow winery in California, dug the first caves for wine, and developed barrels from redwood trees. He authored "Report on Grapes and Wine of California," recognized as the first treatise on winemaking in California. , In 1868, the Count set off for another grand adventure establish a rum plantation in Nicaragua. In a fitting end to a man who, by all accounts was larger than life, The Count disappeared in 1869 when he fell from a tree branch while crossing alligator-infested waters., California’s First Premium Winery , ~1857~.