Grandson of California Wine Pioneer Gets Namesake Wine
Hancock College (left photos) and Buena Vista Winery (right), founded by the Father of California Viticulture, Agoston Haraszthy. Passionate about bringing world-class winemaking to California, Haraszthy visited prominent European wineries and reported back to the governor in 1861: “California is superior in all the conditions of soil, climate, and other natural advantages, to the most favored wine-producing districts of Europe, and it actually has yielded considerably more per acre. All this State requires to produce a generous and noble wine is the varieties of grapes from which the most celebrated wines are made, and the same care and science in its manufacture.”
Agoston died never knowing grandson George Allan Hancock who was born seven years later in 1875. Hancock became a noted sea captain and tycoon when oil was discovered on the family ranch. He leased, then sold land to Hancock College in Santa Maria, where the college agribusiness named a wine in his honor. Read more…>
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