Louis Gomberg; First to Statistically Analyze Wine Industry

Louis Roos Gomberg, a California wine industry pioneer who was the first to track and analyze statistical data of the industry, has died at his San Francisco home. He was 86.

Gomberg, who was active in the industry in a variety of capacities, was an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle in 1935, 18 months after the end of Prohibition, when Leon Adams, who had just formed the California Wine Institute, hired him as an executive.

Gomberg and Adams, now 88 and in failing health, began a number of institute programs that remain to this day, including a technical advisory committee, statistical data service and a series of member publications.

When Gomberg left the institute to found Louis R. Gomberg and Associates in 1948, he became the first to analyze the California wine industry on a statistical basis.

Gomberg brought Jon and Eileen Fredrikson into his firm a decade ago, changing the name to Gomberg, Fredrikson and Associates, and he remained active with the firm until recently.

Late in life he wrote a number of philosophical tracts on wine, personal relationships and good living. He was asked to state his formula for successful living. “Conduct your life so as to bring out the best in others,” he wrote, “thereby bringing out the best in yourself.”

He is survived by his wife, Suzanne, and five children.