Inspired by Alex’s post about the connections that Leland Stanford had to wine [1], I looked further into California wine history. It turns out that Junipero Serra, namesake of Serra Street, is known as the Father of Californian Wine!
Serra brought grape vines to California in the late 18th century. The grape he originally brought was called the Mission grape [2]. It originated in Spain, but had been brought over to the western coast of North (and South) America by Catholic missionaries and travelled with them as they established missions throughout the Western United States [3]. The Mission grape was used to create four different types of wine: one white, two red, and one fortified.
By all accounts, the winemaking process in the early missions was not well developed and it resulted in potable but not particularly enjoyable wines. At the time, wine production was more of a volume play. The San Gabriel Mission, which houses the first working vineyard in the US, was estimated to produce up to 50,000 gallons of wine a year by the 1830s [4].
Luckily for today’s California wine drinkers, in the early 19th century other European varietals were introduced to the state from European immigrants [5]. Fueled by mass migration around the Gold Rush in the 1850s, the variety of grapes grown in California grew exponentially [6].
Interesting analysis, thanks for posting Susannah! It seems like much of the US's wine industry can be attributed to Spanish missionaries. It is reported that in the mid-1600s, Spanish missionaries near modern day El Paso established Texas's first winery. Funnily enough, Texas is actually one of the oldest wine producing states! It seems as if over the next couple hundred years that these missionaries continued to spread throughout the southwest bringing with them grapes in order to plant wineries to produce sacramental wine. It's interesting to contemplate what would have happened had these Spanish missionaries never arrived in America!
ReplyDeleteVery cool, Susannah! Based on my Leland Stanford googling, and this post, it's clear to me that we need to keep digging into all the historical names that adorn this campus. We are surrounded by wine!
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd do one more quick google on another famous campus name: Herbert Hoover. Besides the distinction of being in Stanford's first graduation class, according to a book by Mark Will-Weber ("Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking"), Hoover also had a prolific wine collection (although not a winemaker/grapegrower himself like Leland Stanford/Serra). There is this great anecdote from the book (quoted in an article I found):
"Hoover supposedly had a fantastic wine collection, but his wife allegedly dumped it down the drain when Prohibition hit."[1].
Our class certainly fits right in at Stanford!
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https://lacrossetribune.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/a-look-at-every-us-president-s-favorite-drink/collection_107a0e07-326c-5d52-8abe-40ff87a378eb.html#32