Donn Reisen's life was celebrated last Friday with a day in the Ridge Monte Bello vineyard high atop the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day and 500 of Donn's friends were in attendance to join together in saying goodbye to one of America's greatest wine pioneers.

Donn's passionate efforts during his 33 years at Ridge was the driving force behind making it of one of America's most respected wineries. As sales director and president of Ridge, Donn championed American wine all over the globe, and when he died this past January, the wine industry lost one of its best.

When I heard the news that Donn had taken his own life, I was devastated and perplexed. Just a week earlier I was on the phone with him and he seemed his normal sharp-witted, jovial self. He had called to tell me he would be attending the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta this fall — an event he had embraced when I first met him 20 years ago.

Like many of the people whose lives he touched, I felt a familial relationship with Donn. He treated me like a younger brother, and we always made plans to spend time together when he was in Santa Fe or I was in Northern California. Quick with his infectious laugh that always pulled me in, there was little I would not share with Donn. He was a compassionate listener and a natural mentor. I called him the day my 15-year-old was born — and on the day my father died last year. In between the professional tastings and events we put together, there were lots of shared meals and bottles of wine both in Santa Fe and Santa Cruz.

Five years ago he suffered from a traumatic bike accident and I didn't see him for two years. He landed hard on his head and face, and he required reconstructive surgery and speech coaching to reclaim his life after the devastating spill. From all appearances, the prolonged efforts had succeeded and he appeared in top form when he visited Santa Fe in May 2006. I put together a vertical tasting of Ridge Monte Bello for Donn with a small group of Santa Fe wine buyers, and at lunch, as our gregarious host, he was his usual, keen-witted self.

We celebrated my daughter's 12th birthday party that night at my home with a magnum of Ridge Geyserville Zinfandel from her birth year. Donn looked his usual self in his loud Hawaiian shirt, trimmed mustache and mischievous grin.

A year and a half later, in September 2007, we drank wine and laughed at dinner like we always did. Camera ever in hand, he took pictures of my sisters and their husbands and teased me in front of my family in his feisty way. As his fishing buddy said at the memorial, it was never a question of would Donn pull out the needle, it was simply a question of how big would the needle be.

At Donn's memorial at Ridge Vineyards last Friday, we gathered in the warm spring sun tucked amid the Cabernet and Merlot grapes of the famous Monte Bello vineyard, framed by the rolling golden California hills. As Ridge Winemaker/CEO Paul Draper was about to start the service, an eerily timed morning wind picked up and rustled the old oak trees, silencing the crowd.

In attendance were hundreds of the people whose lives Donn had touched, including Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon; Josh Jensen of Calera; Bob Levy of Harlan Estate and Tom Hill and Larry Archibald of Santa Fe. Like me, many of them were sad and still searching for understanding as to why Donn was gone at 60 years old.

Paul spoke of a friendship that lasted 33 years with the brother he never had. He acknowledged that when Donn arrived to Ridge in 1977, it was the right moment. Paul described a partner who "drove tractors in the vineyard, and grape trucks at harvest. With humor and his innate sense of how things should be done, he re-organized the cellar and managed the hand-bottling line. Most important, when Ridge was swept into the world of modern marketing, Donn found his calling, and excelled. His skill and dedication established today's market for Ridge wines. In 2001 he became president, but continued his role — so vital to Ridge — in sales and marketing. Professionally demanding, yet deeply emphatic and human, he built close relationships wherever he went."

My own questions of why Donn took his life were answered when Jay Jonekait, Donn's brother-in-law, followed Paul's tribute with a teary and emotional remembrance from Donn's family friend and former colleague, Dr. Bruce Arnow, the head of the Psychiatry Department at Stanford University. Apparently, since the bike accident five years ago, Donn had been suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury. Donn suffered from not one but three head injuries. The last six months of his life the TBI had become more acute, with losses of memory, painful headaches, sharp ringing in the ears and fear of impending dementia. I imagined that Donn felt that his self — the vibrant, bold and dynamic self that we all knew and loved — was slipping away.

Donn's wife Marilyn Reisen spoke with courage, integrity and grace in describing her life partner, a person who had "60 years of wild and precious living, so much experienced and explored with curiosity, acute senses, and passions from childhood on — testing limits of self, others, nature, boundaries, properties of things, ideas and possibilities. A gifted brain, making connections, storing learning in a keen and active memory — fast on the draw with wit, analysis, challenge, and ever-ready to ask why and pursue answers. A world traveler and storyteller whose name evolved from Fiebelkorn to Reisen as we married, and together, defined the life's journey we shared from that first 'I love you' telegraphed on May 6, 1971."

Waving her hand up the sunny hill, Marilyn invited us all to celebrate Donn's life in the vineyard that afternoon, and we followed her lead in a style that Donn would have appreciated: with a grilled sausage and lamb luncheon and many bottles of Ridge Zinfandel and Cabernet, swapping stories that collectively shared how much Donn touched all our lives — and how much we will miss him.

Greg O'Byrne is executive director of the Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta. Contact him at vinevents@aol.com.