Franciscan Wine

Winemaking in California has never been an industry without supervision. The first vines were brought to the Pacific coast by Cortez. When the ruthless conqueror of Mexico did not find gold, he decided to develop the country as an enormous vineyard. He commanded every landowner to plant each year for five years, 1,000 vines for every 100 Indians living on his land. Years later Spain sent her high priests of civilization into the barren desert of Baja, California, agreed that the provision would be made wines for sacramental purposes at their outposts of the mission.

In 1769, Padre Junipero Serra, the beloved Franciscan, established his first mission in Alta California-San Diego Mission de Alcala. He brought vine cuttings with him, the vine that is native to Spain. They have been drawn around the new mission, and as they lived, most cuttings were planted in San Gabriel where sun and soil proved even more fruitful for the vines. The gnarled, twisted trunk of the first vine planted at San Gabriel still bears its annual harvest of grapes from the Mission. This single species planted along El Camino Real by the Franciscan priests, by its abundant yield, established California as a land of vines.

The first commercial vineyard was established in Los Angeles in 1824 by one John Chapman who set out 4,000 vines. It was followed seven years later by one of pioneers, even the most enterprising of France, Louis Vignes. His vineyard, on the site of the current Union Station in Los Angeles, was a profitable company, offering wines and spirits not only for youth in the city of angels, but for the northern ports of Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco.

The big news, a hundred years ago when gold was discovered in California, has created such a fantastic time in American history that the grape rush never received much publicity. He followed the gold rush, and very logically. Each city with a booming market for wine and grapes. The prices were fabulous. If, many thought, good grapes can be grown in southern California where the wines were from, they would probably not be as well elsewhere in the state. New species, such as Chenin Blanc, were imported and they lived as well.

Like a thunderbolt sensational news arrived from Europe. The vineyards of France died of an unknown disease. California would become the world's vineyards. Each boat in the Golden Gate confirmed the tragic news and wonderful. In 1855, the boom is on. Landowners across the state caught the fever of the wine. By planting a few thousand vines they could become rich, with a world market waiting. Vineyards rose from throughout California. In 1858, the vineyards bearing in Los Angeles were selling for $ 1,000 per acre.

Boom then bust!

A poor harvest in 1859 was followed by an equally poor harvest in 1860. The State Agricultural Society, formed in 1854, recognized that something must be done to save the young industry. Each year the Society had sent several of its members, by stagecoach and horseback, to widespread areas of vine plantings to report on economic and agricultural conditions. The most successful vintner was a Sonoma winemaker, Colonel Agoston Haraszthy. His success with foreign grape varieties such as Carignan, had sent land values in the vicinity of his Buena Vista vineyard from $ 6 to $ 135 per acre.

Colonel Haraszthy achievement was no accident, his life had been spent in finding the place in America to make good wines. In 1847, he planted his first vineyard in Wisconsin shortly after his arrival in this country from Hungary. Undaunted by the fact that there he moved to San Diego, primarily for his health. It has imported more than one hundred sixty-five different species of grapes from Europe, including Zinfandel which has become the most widely planted grape in California.

D.