What to do with grapes from the 250-year-old vines at San Gabriel Mission? Make wine, of course
For many, San Gabriel Mission church was where they went to Mass, married, celebrated. For others, it’s a reminder of brutal domination of Native Americans.The success of the region’s earliest winemakers, however, came at the expense of Native peoples — cultivation and production at San Gabriel Mission was done through the forced labor of Tongva and other indigenous tribes, a reflection of the widespread brutality and racism that defined much of the mission era.
“We’ve always been open about the complexity of the mission’s past and discussing the full history,” Huerta said. “I think it’s important we tell these stories with more context and awareness, which includes how we present the grapevines and the role they played here.”By the 1830s, a few years before the newly independent Mexican government officially secularized the missions, the vineyards at San Gabriel had expanded to more than 170 acres, producing as much as 50,000 gallons of wine per year.
The hegemony of the Mission grape, however, would not last forever. As more European immigrants arrived in California, prized French varieties such as Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc took root, crowding out the Mission, which became seen as an inferior grape that produced dull table wines with little acidity or flavor .
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