David Ready opened state to California wines

David L. Ready Sr. was a wine lover and distributor who helped introduce California wines to Minnesota in the early 1970s.

"He started an era of California wine in this area," added Jim Surdyk, of Surdyk's Liquors in Minneapolis "He made the ball roll for the California wine industry, a prime pioneer."

Ready, 64, died Sept. 10 of complications from aortic aneurism surgery in Greenbrae, Calif., said his son, Dave Ready Jr.

"He's really the guy who put 'fine' in front of California wine here," added Larry Colbeck, owner of the Wine Company, a St. Paul wholesaler.

Ready, who grew up in Long Prairie, Minn., served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam where his duties included intelligence work and chauffeuring generals and visiting entertainers such as Ann-Margret and Wayne Newton, his son said. Ready returned home to work at a St. Louis Park liquor store while earning a degree at Hamline University in St. Paul. In the early 1970s, he became a co-partner in a wine distributorship that sold to Surdyk's and other retailers.

"He opened our eyes to the style and especially the price point of California wines," Colbeck said. "He brought Sonoma County wines. It was a huge step in opening doors for Minnesota consumers because all of a sudden the labels had grape type names we could pronounce as opposed to the European wines that just had the region. We couldn't pronounce them and didn't know what grapes were in there."

Colbeck said Ready liked working with the small Sonoma vineyard growers rather than the big Napa Valley vintners. "Sonoma County is the working wineries where the owner gets his hands dirty. That appealed to him."

John Hoffman, who had worked with Ready since 1985, said the entrepreneur helped small wineries, such as Pedroncelli and Dry Creek Vineyard, increase their volume by selling nationally to compete with big wine companies.

Having worked retail and wholesale, Ready was a problem solver. "Dave really made the wineries sensitive to what consumers were wanting. He got input from retailers and restaurants and would take it back to the wineries and say, 'This is what people are looking for,' " Colbeck said.

Besides wine, Ready loved golf and rock music, even attending Grateful Dead concerts with his son, Dave Jr., who said his father, a DJ in his youth, passed away as the final chords of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" played in his Marin Hospital room.

Ready is survived by his wife, Mary Lannin, and sons David and Adam, all of Healdsburg, Calif.; daughter Kristin Ready Bowers, of Springdale, Ark.; siblings Michael, of Janesville, Minn., and Vicki, of Minneapolis, and four grandchildren.