Arrival of the Spanish Explorers | EST. 1769
In 1769 | Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan missionary who spearheaded the movement to create the Mission system in California, planted the first known vineyard in California.
He brought wine grape vines from Mexico to each of the 21 missions he founded from San Diego to San Francisco. The wine made at the Mission was used for religious purposes, and the daily table needs and became known as the "Mission grape."
In 1830 | A Frenchman, Jean Luois Vignes arrived in Southern California from Bordeaux France with vines and planted the first commercial vineyard in what is now Downtown Los Angeles. He was also the first commercial winemaker to import and plant European Vitis vinifera grapes in the state.
Shortly afterward, a group of immigrants from Germany settled and planted a large vineyard in Anaheim, now the site of the "The Happiest Place On Earth," Disneyland.
In 1853 | Following the forty-niners' search for gold in the hills of Northern California, Count Agoston Haraszthy, an immigrant from Hungry sought "purple gold" – the perfect 'terroir' for exceptional wine. He is attributed for improving the California wines quality and rapid growth and brought many vine cuttings from his trips to Europe.
Haraszthy began to experiment with a variety of vines to determines which would best be suited for the mid-peninsula climate. Among the varietals, he planted and developed what a mysterious grape he named Zinfandel. Initially, he placed an order from Europe for the "German Zierfandler" vines that produce a white grape. The vines that arrived from Hungry didn't resemble what he had ordered.
He had planted the Zinfandel vines in a small valley canyon alongside the San Andreas faultline, now covered by the Crystal Springs Reservoir along Interstate 280. He soon discovered the cold moisture from the fog rolling over the off the Pacific Ocean, and down the mountain's eastern slope was preventing his grapes from fully ripening for harvest.
After three years of strenuous effort, he sold his vineyard and moved north to a warmer California region. In 1857 founded the now-famous Buena Vista Vineyards in Sonoma county.
1854 | Dr. Tripp's Woodside store was the first location to produced and sell wine in San Mateo County commercially. He began the first town center in Woodside as the small lumber town supplied the wood needed to build San Francisco before and after the devastating 1906 earthquake.
After the ancient Redwood forest had been clearcut, the fertile hillside and bottomlands were converted to vineyards starting the Northern California wine industry.
The open space allowed the arriving immigrants from Germany, Italy, and France — the folks who knew how to make wine fertile land. The combination of the warm, dry climate made it a perfect terroir to grow world-class wine grapes.
The area soon began to attract wealthy San Francisco businesspeople to build summer homes and weekend family retreats. One were the Stanford family who built their country home, and farm that raised horses and later established Standford University on their land in Palo Alto.
Woodside Vineyards has played a vital role for the past 55 years preserving and maintaining the remaining historic vineyards, such as La Questa in Woodside, and the winemaking heritage of the Santa Cruz mountains. Follow us as we go back in history.
The Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation
The Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation straddles the San Andrea fault line where the North American tectonic plate on the east and the Pacific plate on the westside come together. It's the first American Viticulture Area (AVA) to be determined by a mountain region, also known as "America's Premier Mountain Appellation."
The winegrowing region covers over 850 square miles starting south in Monterey Bay, through Gilroy, back up the coast through Santa Cruz and Halfmoon Bay, with a quick shot over the Mountain range east to Woodside. Thirteen micro-climates run through the Santa Cruz Mountainous Appellation each with their own distinct mineral-rich terroir added to the winegrape's flavor.
In 1981 | Led by the founder of Woodside Vineyards, Bob Mullen, and a small group of Santa Cruz Mountains winery owners established the first American Viticultural Area (AVA) defined by a mountainous region. It is known as "America's Premier Mountain Appellation."
In the famous "Judgement of Paris" made popular in the 2008 American comedy-drama film, "Bottle Shock," based on the 1976 Paris wine tasting competition when California wines defeated French wines in a blind taste tests. Two of the 11 wines chosen to represent California's best were from the Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation.
The Santa Cruz Mountains offer a unique mountain terroir that combines fertile soil made up of decomposed rock, clay, loam, and limestone. All on top of the shifting San Andreas faultline. The mountain terrain, marine influence, varied micro-climates, and distinctive soils combine to produce some of the most exceptional conditions for winegrowing.
The painting is by Ed Greco, an artist based in Carmel, California, and is the artist-in-residence at Auto Vino whose oil paintings have decorated the Auto Vino labeled wines. Much of his work can be viewed and bought at the Gallerie Amsterdam in Carmel.
