Robert Morrisey, founder of Wine Spectator, an influential lifestyle magazine for wine consumers, has died of congestive heart failure. He was 78.

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Morrisey died Saturday at a San Diego hospital, according to his daughter, Michele Morrisey.

In the early 1970s, Morrisey, a former Marine officer, developed an interest in fine wine and started writing a column for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In 1976, he decided to start a publication devoted to his passion, a biweekly tabloid begun on April 1 with an inaugural print run of 3,000 copies, the Los Angeles Times said.

"For the few of us who struggled to launch the original 12-page tabloid newspaper, it was no April Fool's joke," Morrisey, a native of Wheeling, W.Va., wrote in the magazine's 20th anniversary issue. "It was an undercapitalized commitment. Of necessity, it had to be a labor of love."