Napa, Calif.—William “Mick” Michael Winter, died peacefully of leukemia on Saturday Jan. 14 at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Vallejo, with his family at his bedside. He was 75.

An innovator, idealist, writer, futurist and community activist, Winter lived in the Napa Valley for nearly 40 years and was an integral part of the local community. His widow, Kathryn Jacobs Winter, is the former vice mayor of Yountville and a former Napa County supervisor.

In the 1990s, Winter wrote what at the time was one of the definitive guidebooks on the region, The Napa Valley Book, and developed its companion website called NapaValley Online. The website was a comprehensive compendium of services that linked locals to everything from the best wineries and restaurants to real-time reports from public agencies on natural disasters, power outages and other emergencies. For a number of years, NapaValley Online was a virtual information hub for all things Napa and a valuable community resource.

A former staff writer for Wine Business Monthly, Mick also wrote regularly for the Napa Valley Life magazine and a number of other local publications. In 2008, Napa Valley Life named him one of the valley's most “intriguing” residents, in recognition of his support for neighborhood associations, sustainability and his groundbreaking websites: NapaNow.com (which succeeded NapaValley Online), SustainableNapaValley.org, and his online newspaper, the NapaValleyHerald.com.

Winter is survived by his wife Kathryn Jacobs Winter, daughter Joanna Winter and her spouse David Huffman, his sister Patricia F. Winter, cousin James Hall, his niece Marguerite Brydolf Jacobs and nephew Maxwell Robert Jacobs, his sister-in-law Carol Brydolf and her wife Anne Brydolf Langill.