The grape vines that clamber over Olvera Street (until 1877, “Calle de las Vinas”, or “Street of the Vines”) are both picturesque and historic. Few celebrate downtown Los Angeles as the spot where California’s wine industry first took root, but it was. The three 150 year-old stocks, one at Pelanconi House (now the fabulous “La Golondrina”) and two in the courtyard of the Avila Adobe, are survivors or “the Old Mission Vine” that was bred bred here in Alta California by the Franciscans, and serve as stock for so much of the world’s great vineyards. Here’s Wikipedia’s version of the story of Monsieur Vignes, known locally as “Don Luis del Aliso,” a Frenchman who was one of LA’s most illustrious early citizens.
Upon arriving in Los Angeles in 1831, Jean-Louis Vignes bought 104 acres (0.42 km2) of land located between the original Pueblo and the banks of the Los Angeles River. He planted a vineyard and started preparing to make wine. He named his property El Aliso after the centuries-old sycamore tree found near the entrance. The grapes available at the time, of the Mission variety, were brought to Alta California by the Franciscan Brothers at the end of the 18th century. They grew well and yielded large quantities of wine, but Jean-Louis Vignes was not satisfied with the results. Therefore, he decided to import better vines from Bordeaux, Cabernet Franc andSauvignon blanc. The vines transited around Cape Horn. To preserve their roots during the long trip, they were inserted in moss and potato slices. Vignes became the first Californio who grew quality vines, and the first who aged his wines. The common practice at the time was to drink the wine as soon as it was fermented. The exact date of his first vintage is unknown. However, it was probably before 1837, because in 1857 he ran an advertisement claiming that some of his wines were 20 years old.[14] The wood for the barrels came from land Vignes owned in the San Bernardino Mountains.
— Wikipedia entry on vintner Jean-Louis Vignes
In 1840, Jean-Louis Vignes made the first recorded shipment of California wine. The Los Angeles market was too small for his production, and he loaded a shipment on the Monsoon, bound for Northern California. By 1842, he made regular shipments to Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco. By 1849, El Aliso, was the most extensive vineyard in California. Vignes owned over 40,000 vines and produced 150,000 bottles, or 1000 barrels, per year.
As a prominent citizen of Los Angeles, Jean-Louis Vignes met and entertained such well known men as General William Tecumseh Sherman, Thomas Larkin, William Heath Davis and Thomas ap Catesby Jones. His wine was drunk all over California and samples were sent to President Tyler in Washington, D.C. and to France.
He was quite successful in agriculture. In 1834, he brought a few orange trees from Mission San Gabriel, and planted the first orange grove in Los Angeles. In 1851, he wrote that his two orange groves produced between 5000 and 6000 oranges per season. He also grew 400 peach trees, as well as apricots, pears, apples, figs, and walnuts. In 1855, Jean-Louis Vignes sold El Aliso to his nephews Pierre Sainsevain and Jean-Louis Sainsevain for $40,000, the largest sum of money ever paid for real estate in California at the time.
It should be added, that the old sycamore tree “El Aliso” that Vignes took as his corporate brand, was the same landmark “El Aliso”, that ancient sycamore, huge and spreading on the bank of the River, which shaded and fostered the Tongva village of Yangna for centuries. Thus, long after the Indians had been absorbed and displaced in the Pueblo, their venerated home-tree became California’s first industrial trademark brand. Talk about “cultural appropriation.”
Here’s a 2015 Los Angeles Times article on the remarkable genetics of these vines:
https://www.latimes.com/food/drinks/la-fo-0919-pueblo-20150919-story.html
The Valley Village View 