Eugene Cuneo, 94; grape grower helped put North Coast on viticultural map
Eugene Cuneo, 94, a Sonoma County grape grower who helped put the region on the viticultural map, died Tuesday at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital of heart problems aggravated by a gastrointestinal illness, according to his daughter-in-law, Paula Cuneo.
A founding member of the California North Coast Grape Growers Assn., Cuneo was the driving force behind getting the region named as one of the first appellations in the United States in the early 1980s. The North Coast American Viticultural Area encompasses more than 3 million acres in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties.
Born in San Francisco in 1912 to Italian immigrants, Cuneo established the Dry Creek Valley vineyard that he eventually ran with his second cousin, Eugene Saini.
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