No one knows just when the name “Mission” was given to the grapes brought from Mexico to Baja then to Alta California and finally to the American southwest by the Jesuits and Franciscans who established the Spanish missions in the new world. It is clearly a southern European wine grape variety (probably the Spanish Monica or Criolla) with relatives in South America including the Criolla negra of Venezuela and Argentina and the Pais of Chile. The grape was brought to the new world by Spanish Conquistadors 250 years before it came to Alta California. The vine took to the California climate like a native and by the 1830's three varieties of Mission vines were grown in most of California’s pueblos and ranchos. By the gold rush of 1849, Mission grapes were also known as “California,” “native,” or “Los Angeles” and was the most popular wine grape in the gold country. |
According to historian Eric Costa, Mission vines may have first come to the Sierra foothills the same year gold was discovered in California. Frenchman Claude Chana traveled to Mission San Jose where he obtained 200 cuttings of Mission vine that he planted in Placer County’s Auburn Ravine in 1848. The oldest known existing Mission vineyard may well be Ken Deaver’s (Deaver Vineyards) four acres of vines planted by his great grandfather John A. Davis in Amador’s Shenandoah Valley in 1857. The popularity of Mission grapes came not from their ability to produce fine wine but from their productivity and ease of propagation. Mission vines are strong and vigorous with thick trunks and stout canes supporting large, dark green leaves and loose bunches of red-skinned grapes. Wines produced from Mission grapes have had a history of being either course, alcoholic, poor quality table wines with low acid and little varietal character or heavy sweet wines. However, it was discovered that Mission grapes made a good fortified, port-like wine. About the turn of the century (1900), Angelica was a popular product of Mission grapes. The wine was really a fortified grape juice made by adding brandy to the unfermented must to stop the action of yeasts. This method was one way to make a decent wine from the high sugar, low acid Mission grape. During Prohibition, Mission grapes were shipped to eastern home winemakers by the boxcar load. Over 1,000 carloads were shipped east annually but Mission still only accounted for about two percent of the grapes shipped east during the “dry” years. Mission vineyards have steadily declined since 1930 from about 11,000 acres to about 500 acres today. The grapes are used primarily as a blending wine and as a base for a variety of fortified wines. |
On a misty morning in the late spring of 1778, a small Spanish cargo ship, the San Antonio,
captained by Don Jose Camacho, landed at San Juan Capistrano with supplies for the fledgling mission on the coast of Alta California. Among the items off-loaded that fateful May day were dormant grape vine cuttings whose legacy would one day be – California wine.
