Page 102 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2025 THAILAND
P. 102
of colonization. they controlled over 58,000 acres in San
Some historians have dismissed the Diego. Vineyards were planted throughout
Mission grape as producing inferior wine, El Cajon Valley and Mission Valley, with
calling it bland or overly sweet. But others, records indicating over 5,000 vines at one
including William Heath Davis, praised the mission and 3,600 at another by 1830.
mission wine: The mission Indians were trained to
“They (the missions) were always hos- plant, pick, and press grapes. Pioneer Car-
pitable to strangers. All visitors were los Hijar described the traditional method:
kindly received and entertained with the
best they could offer. The wine made at “The wine of pastoral days was made
the missions was of superior quality and thus: suitable ground was selected, and
equal to any I have drunk elsewhere.” a desván (platform) placed thereon.
Governor Vicente Solá of Alta Califor- This was covered with clean hides, and
nia thought the wine good enough to serve grapes piled upon it. Some well-washed
the Spanish Crown. In a letter to the fa- Indians, wearing only a zapeta (loin-
thers at Mission San Diego, he wrote: cloth), the hair tied and hands wrapped
to absorb perspiration, each using a
stick for balance, treaded the grapes.”
“His Excellency, Viceroy Count de
Venadito, desires to have a dozen bot-
tles of wine from your mission to send The juice was collected in coras or
to the King, our August Monarch Don leather bags, transferred to large wooden
Fernando. Let each bottle be labeled: tubs, and allowed to ferment under grape
‘Wine of New California from Mission skins for two to three months. Juice not pro-
San Diego.’ And if it arrives sounder cessed this way was pressed into wooden
than a barrel of the same wine for said barrels or copper jars, covered, and occa-
Viceroy, I shall esteem it highly.” sionally heated using inserted tubes for
evaporation and distillation—some jars
served as stills for making brandy. For white
This was the first documented ship-
ment of California wine to Europe, and the wine, only the first juice was taken and
King reported that, despite its age, the stored.
wine was “very palatable.” Crushing grapes by foot remained com-
The missions thrived. At their peak, mon in California until the 1930s and beyond.
102 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER 2025
