California: History

Franciscan missionaries planted the first Vitis vinifera vines in California around 1770 (the native Vitis californica and Vitis girdiana are unfit for wine). For the next eighty years the Franciscans’ mission grape remained the basis of California wine-growing, which passed from the missions to small growers as the mission lands were secularized under the newly independent Mexican government beginning in 1822. After the US annexation of Alta California in 1847, and the discovery of gold in 1848, wine-growing spread throughout the state. California’s fame as a new wine region spread even as far as North Caucasus (see russia).