THE ORIGIN OF VITICULTURE AND WINE PRODUCTION IN THE NEW WORLD PRIOR TO 1629.
BY HENRY STREET, PONDEROSA VALLEY WINERY, April 1, 2012
Viticulture and wine production officially started in New Mexico in 1629. Littlehas been written about the origin and procurement of the first grapevine cuttings brought to New Mexico. I believe evidence points to Parras Mexico as the origin of these grapevines. This short paper emphasizes the early Hispanic history in the Americas encompassing the major developments of viticulture and wine production of the 16th century (early 1520’s to 1629).
Wine production in what are now North and South America started in Peru in the early 1520’s. The Viceroyality of Peru (established in 1531) reported to Emperor, CharlesV, that they had by this time, thriving olive and wine industries, with the planting of wine grapes spreading quickly to Chile and Argentina. TheChilean name for the grapes brought by the missionaries was reported to be called the “Chilean Pais” grape.
After conquering Mexico in 1521, Herman Cortez, pursued an aggressive agricultural policy. Inhis correspondence with theSpanish Emperor,he asked that every flotilla include agricultural material such as fruit and vegetable seeds as well as wine grape cuttings.
He encouraged his land grant recipients to start vineyards, and he even made such plantings a condition of the grant. By the time of his death in 1547 however, he had failed to start a wine industry in New Spain (Mexico). Castilian wine grapessimply would not thrive in central Mexico.
In 1554 the first expeditions into the vast territory north of Zacatecas had begun. An area some 200 miles north of Zacatecas, called “Lake Country” (Copela), became known and was often referred to asParras, meaning grapevines. It appears likely that the name Parras had been used for this area from the contact period in the 1560’s because of the abundance of wild grapes in this basin. By the early 1590’s, the potential for vineyards and large scale wine production had attracted the attention of an ambitious and wealthy empire builder, Francisco Urdinola. Urdinola is generally credited with theinitiation, of the wine industry in North America, at Parras. He built a hacienda and winery east of Parras, and by 1598 when the Jesuits established a mission and a Pueblo (Santa Maria de Parras), viticulture and wine production were well underway.
The Parras region in the early 1620’s, with large established haciendas, was reported to be a stopover, on the arduous journey north on the Camino Real from Parral to the New Mexico provinces.
Throughout the Northern Kingdom of Mexico, wine was designated as either Castilla, from Spain, or Vino de Parras. In 1629, Parras was the only grape growing and wine producing region in North America.
Apparently only one grape variety was grown in the Parras region. It was called Criolla, meaning born in the new World of European origin. The Criolla grape became the nearly exclusive grape variety used for wine and brandy production throughout the borderlands for over 200 years. Criolla grape cuttings from Parras were brought to New Mexico in 1629.
When cuttings of the Criolla grape were propagated in California after 1769, the cultivar became known as the Mission grape variety.
Source:
Origins and Early Development of New Mexico’s wine industry
By Paul Kraemer
La Cronica de Nuevo Mexico
Historical Society of New Mexico
March 2005, Issue Number 64, pages 4 through 8.
Mission grape – taken from Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia)
Mission grapes are a variety of Vitis Vinifera introduced from Spain tothe western coastsof north and South America by Catholic New World missionaries for use in making sacramental, table, and fortified wines.
The original European strain, until recently, had been lost, thus the grapes’ being named “Mission grapes” since the Spanish missions are where they were generally grown. The grape was introduced to the Las Californias Province of new Spain, present-day California, in the late 18th century by Franciscan missionaries. Until about 1850, Mission grapes, or Criolla, represented the entirety of viticulture in New Mexico and California wines.
Red and white wine, sweet and dry wine, brandy, and a fortified wine called Angelica were all produced from Mission grapes. Though Mission grape vines are heavy producers and can adapt to a variety of climates, table wine made from the fruit tends to be rather characterless, and thus its use in wine making has diminished in modern times. The Mission grape is related to the pink Criolla grape of Argentina and the red Pais grape of Chile.
In December 2006, Spanish scholars from the Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia in Madrid, uncovered the name and origin of the mysterious Mission grape, which were the earliest European vines grown in the Americas. The scholars determined that the Mission grape’s DNA matched a little-known Spanish variety called Listan Prieto. Listan is another name for Palomino, a primary white grape used to make Sherry. Prieto means “dark or black”.
Widely cultivated in 16th-century Castile, Listan Prioeto is now uncommon in Spain. In Spain’s Canary Islands, where it is known as Palomino Negro it is widely cultivated. Scholars believe the grape’s heyday ended in Spain when Phylloxera destroyed much of Spanish viticulture in the 19th century.
NOTE: This short paper will become an addition to the “History of wine in New Mexico, 400 years of struggle”. At this time the next printing is not scheduled.
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