So let's recap.
The thesis here is that the Spanish, and, more specifically, the Spanish monks, were responsible for the defeat of the French wines by the upstart Americans at the Judgment of Paris tasting. I began offering up proofs in my most recent post. The Spanish were the first to bring vitis vinifera to the New World; vitis vinifera was a requirement to compete with, much less defeat, the French wines.
The vitis vinifera planted at Hispaniola failed. That provided the first opportunity for the Spaniards to put a stake in the heart of the unborn American "wine industry" but they could not be deterred from the mission of embarrassing the French so they took another bite of the apple: they took vitis vinifera cuttings and seeds to Mexico. To the Mexican Highlands, no less, where the climate, and the heavy hand of Hernan Cortes, proved conducive to the growth of the vine.
King Philip II of Spain was a monarch with foresight. He saw the risk and sought to stop the menace in its tracks. He issued an edict in 1595 banning the production of wine in New Spain because it was hurting the business of the European Spanish producers.The King short-circuited his edict, however, by issuing a license to Don Lorenzo Garcia allowing the production of wine and brandy in Mexico. This edict did not accomplish its objectives as Mexican wine continued to flourish and grapegrowing to extend north.
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| King Philip II of Spain |
A little more than 100 years later, King Charles II also saw the light and issued a second edict banning New World grape production, with the exception of wine produced for sacramental purposes. And therein lay the license for the monks to keep afloat this enterprise which would eventually become the ondoing of the French. The monks used this exception to move grapevines steadily northward, beginning with the 1697 planting of vines by Juan Maria de Salvatierra at the Loreta Mission in Baja California.
We move on from there.
After the founding of the Loreta Mission, the Jesuits began a steady march up the Baja California peninsula, founding 18 missions over the next seven decades. But it was not all peaches and cream for the team. It was rumored that they had amassed a fortune and were becoming powerful and this prompted the King to issue an order in 1768 to have them forcibly expelled from New Spain and returned to their home country. The Franciscans took over administration of the missions as did members of the Dominican Order. The Dominican Order arrived in 1772 and by 1800 had established nine missions in Baja California while managing a number of the former Jesuit missions.
While the foregoing was afoot, the Franciscans were also pushing further into the Spanish colonial holdings called Alta California.
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| Alta California (Source: sfsdhistory.com) |
The Franciscans controlled the missions in Alta California until secularization. Friars with missionary experience from the College of San Fernando in Mexico City were selected to take over existing missions and to create new ones: "They knew the crafts of husbandry, weaving, carpentry and masonry" and were also well-versed in the teaching of religion.
The Franciscan spearheading the push into Alta California was Friar Juniperro Serra, the senior member of the community.
He is considered the farther of California wine in that he planted the first vitis vinifera vines in 1769 at a mission called San Diego de Alcalá. Mission grape cuttings were first planted at San Diego and then, in 1771, just north at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. Subsequent plantings were made in Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. The totality of Franciscan Missions in Alta California is shown in the image below.
It should be noted that these areas were the colonial properties of Spain and then became a colony of Mexico after its independence in 1921. California did not become a part of the United States until 1850.
I will continue next with winemaking activity on the eastern coast of the US.
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