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Revision as of 03:32, 24 April 2006 by Wknight94 (talk | contribs) (Fixing links to disambiguation pages using AWB)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Agoston Haraszthy (august 30, 1812 in Futak, Hungary-july 6, 1869 in Texas), the “Father of Modern Viticulture in California,” was born in Hungary. Although commonly referred to as Count Haraszthy, he was not actually a count.
Life
He was invited to Washington by Daniel Webster and other leading Democrats in 1840, to discuss commercial relations between the US and Hungary. Although he was a chemist and metallurgist, he spent most of his life in the wine business.
In 1840-1841 he travelled West, and impressed by what he saw, first he purchased a small plot along the Wisconsin river, later (with his partner Robert Bryant), bought 10,000 acres for a townsite and founded Szeptaj, wich later renamed as Sauk City. The name Széptáj is merged from two hungarian words: szép (nice/beautiful) and táj (region/scenery) together meaning Beautiful scenery. Later he founded the first steamboat transport company on the Wisconsin River. In spite of these successes, Haraszthy was disappointed in not being able to establish the high quality vineyards of his native Hungary. By 1848 the Haraszthy family decided to settle in California, where he became sheriff and later state representative in San Diego County.
In 1857, he purchased land in California’s Sonoma Valley and began planting vineyards. In 1861, the State Legislature commissioned him to travel to Europe in order to purchase grapevines of every possible variety. He pioneered a number of viticulture experiments and innovation and was elected president of the California State Agricultural Society. He was author of the book Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine Making.
Haraszthy is often credited with introducing the Zinfandel variety into California. However, there is strong scientific evidence that he did not do so.
See also
Source
- Agoston Haraszthy
- Agoston Haraszthy
- Groves, Martha. Making Zinfandel's case as the Calif. state wine. Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2006.
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