Founding the winery was a young dermatologist named David Bruce. Although raised in a teetotaler family, David discovered wine while a medical student through his interest in food and cooking. After completing his medical residency, he purchased 40 acres of land above the fog line in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He cleared the land himself and planted the vineyard by hand. At the time there were only one or two other working wineries in the region. During the first 25 years of the winery, David divided his time, maintaining a fulltime dermatology practice in Los Gatos and running the winery, until his retirement from his medical practice in 1985.

For David, the urge to make fine wine has always included a need to understand how fine wine is created. His combination of passion and scientific curiosity has led to pioneering efforts, now legendary, that have contributed to both the industry's evolution and the quality of David Bruce wines. His work with the diversity of California grapes and winemaking techniques made him one of the first winemakers since Prohibition to produce a "Blanc de Noir," a white wine from red zinfandel grapes, and to introduce "late harvest" wines.

David was also one of the first winemakers to put white wines through a secondary, malolactic fermentation; a California pioneer in the use of whole-berry fermentation in making red wines; one of the first California winemakers to import French oak barrels; and an early advocate of foot crushing, extensive skin contact, small-barrel fermentation, and rotary tanks.