Al Scheid, Founder and Chairman of the Board of California’s Scheid Family Wines, passed away peacefully at his home in Pacific Palisades at the age of 91 on March 31. Scheid was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, coming from humble beginnings and leading an extraordinary life. He was raised in a coal-mining town in Ohio during the Depression, an upbringing he wrote about in his 2014 memoir “Breaking Out of Beerport.” After his youth, came travels, military service, education at Harvard and entrepreneurship. He founded his eponymous wine company in 1972, pioneering the Monterey grape-growing region as an industry leader. Scheid Family Wines evolved from a grape grower to a wine company producing close to 1 million cases of wine annually and is ranked among the top 25 largest wine producers in California. The company remains family-run. He was a founder of the California Association of Winegrape Growers in 1974, serving as Chairman and long-time board member; he was named its Leader of the Year in 2017.