Brother [Timothy Diener], a prominent and pioneering California vintner who was the winemaker for Christian Brothers for many years after the end of Prohibition, has died. He was 94.

He had retired in 1989 when the Brothers of the Christian Schools sold its wine- and brandy-making operation to the Heublein Fine Wine Group. Before that, Diener spent more than 50 years making wines, becoming an unlikely leader in shaping California's wine industry.

Born in Elizabeth, N.J., in 1910, Diener began his career as a Christian Brother teaching high school chemistry in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition, he became a wine chemist at Mont La Salle Vineyards in the Napa Valley.