(WineSpectator) - Man behind Geyser Peak and Luna Vineyards was a businessman and an innovator. As an entrepreneur, George Vare liked doing new things. As a vintner, he introduced bag-in-box wine to America in the 1970s, fiddled with low-alcohol sparkling cider, helped broker two of the biggest wine deals in Napa Valley history and pursued Cal-Ital wines—Italian grapes in California terroirs—with a passion. He spent his final years spreading the gospel of Ribolla Gialla, an Italian grape few have heard of, but that Vare believed showed how varied and exciting wine could be.

Vare died April 12 in Napa at age 76, after a lengthy battle with melanoma. He began his career in wine by convincing the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. to buy an old vinegar works in northern Sonoma and turn it into a winery, creating Geyser Peak. He was president of the winery from 1972 to 1979, during which time it grew into one of California’s bigger wineries, producing 700,000 cases a year.