Home News Local News Dr. ‘Dan’ Damianos, owner, founder of Pindar Vineyards, passes away

Dr. ‘Dan’ Damianos, owner, founder of Pindar Vineyards, passes away

SoutholdLOCAL photo by Lynn Spinnato for Pindar Vineyards.

A giant in the North Fork wine industry has passed away.

A staffer at Pindar Winery in Peconic confirmed Tuesday morning, Dr. Herodotus “Dan” Damianos, 82, died on Monday night.

“He was a wonderful man,” she said.

Kathryn Krejci, Pindar CEO, agreed. She began working with Damianos over 40 years ago, in 1973, when he owned a nursing home in Port Jefferson station.

“We’re all reeling,” she said. “It’s the end of an era. Old-world style gentlemen like him just don’t exist anymore. He was one of a kind.”

Damianos, she said, never used foul language and always treated women with respect. And family, Krejci said, always came first. “He loved his family,” she said. “He was with his wife Barbara for just about 50 years. They have five kids and four grandchildren. He had a wonderful family. This is a very sad day.”

Born on Oct. 17, 1931, Damianos would have been 83 this year. “We were hoping he’d make his birthday,” Krejci said.

While Damianos has enjoyed good health for most of his life, he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, and that’s what he succombed to Monday night, at home, with his beloved wife by his side. “He was just a lovely man,” she said. “People like him are so rare.”

According to the Pindar website, Damianos, a forefather of the North Fork and Long Island wine industry, was born in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, far from the bucolic North Fork.

“A tree may have been growing in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t on 41st Street,” he said, on the site.

In 1966, Dr. Dan, as he was known, an internist, moved to Stony Brook, where found grape vines on he property, the site said — and a legacy was born.

He purchased farmland in Peconic in 1970 and, in 1980, began planting his vines; the first wines were introduced in 1982, the site said.

 “I love medicine,” he said in his biography on the site.  “But I also wanted to do something creative.” 

For some time, Damianos continued as a physician, working on the vineyard in his free time. But by 1988, Pindar wines were served at President George W. Bush’s inauguration; he opened Duck Walk Vineyards on the South Fork by 1994, his bio stated.

Funeral arrangements were not yet available.

 

 

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