Harry Herman Wetzel Jr., a Los Angeles aerospace executive and self-described accidental vintner who bought vacation property in Sonoma County that he and his family transformed into Alexander Valley Vineyards, has died. He was 88.
Wetzel died Thursday of complications related to old age at his restored Victorian home on the vineyard property in Healdsburg, Calif., said Sarah Fallon, a granddaughter.
Along with his wife, Margaret, and friends, Wetzel bought the land in 1962 as a weekend retreat. They wanted their four children to discover the outdoors, "to experience swimming in a river," his wife once said.
They raised prunes and pears before settling on grapes, even though "we had no plans to start a winery," Wetzel told The Times in 1981.
Their son Hank developed a plan for a small winery as his senior project while earning a degree in fermentation science at UC Davis in the early 1970s.
It became the blueprint for Alexander Valley Vineyard winery, named for Cyrus Alexander, a 19th century settler who had owned their property and is the valley's namesake.
Their first wine, a Riesling, was released in 1975 to "glowing acclaim," wine critic Robert Lawrence Balzer wrote in The Times in 1986. He called the vineyard "one of the West's most picturesque estates."
Today, the winery produces about 100,000 cases a year of 17 varietal wines and proprietary blends.
Three of Wetzel's children work for the winery: Hank runs it, and daughter Katie Wetzel Murphy directs marketing and sales. Another son, John, is in sales.
Away from the vineyard, Wetzel was chairman and chief executive of Garrett Corp., the aerospace manufacturing firm that he joined in 1946. He ran the company for 19 years before retiring in 1985.
Garrett was a leading manufacturer of small jet engines. During the 1970s, its turbofan engine was successful because it was quieter and used less fuel than the older jet engines it replaced.
Wetzel the engineer was often referred to as "a man with a plan for a fan."
Born Jan. 27, 1920, in Howard, Pa., Wetzel was the only child of Harry and Maude Wetzel. His engineer father moved the family to Santa Monica in 1922 to become a vice president of Douglas Aircraft, where he played a "stellar role" in the development of the DC-4 airliner, according to his father's 1938 obituary in The Times.
In 1941, Wetzel graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in engineering, then joined the Army Air Forces and became a test pilot.
