David Hirsch, who was among the first to grow wine grapes on the windswept, fogbound Sonoma Coast of California, stimulating interest in the area that would become one of America’s great wine-producing regions, died on July 28 in Santa Rosa, CA. He was 81.

Mr. Hirsch’s 77-acre vineyard of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, stoked the imaginations of young, gifted producers. Initially, Mr. Hirsch sold his grapes to companies that used them in anonymous Sonoma blends. But in the early 1990s, producers bottled wines designated with the Hirsch Vineyards brand, establishing the reputation of the Sonoma Coast for elegant wines. Mr. Hirsch eventually started to produce his own wines, but he never stopped selling to other winemakers.

Before settling on land in Sonoma, he searched in Idaho, Oregon and Northern California. Finally, he saw an ad for an old ranch on the Sonoma Coast near the town of Cazadero, two hours by car from the Golden Gate Bridge, on a ridge 1,500 feet up from the ocean. “This was the place,” he said. “There was no electricity, no houses, and it was dirt cheap it had no value.”

By 1988, he had taken up grape growing full time. “My inspiration,” he said, “was to create that transcendental community, an integrated, self-sustaining community that would be able to withstand the traps that the analytic and material approach to life always bring.”