Journey of Discovery by Michael Perlis

I know when I think of wine, my first thought is my favorite wine area – Paso Robles. Others think of Napa or Sonoma, or maybe Santa Barbara County, or even Lodi or Amador County.

But, with the impending opening of Pulchella Winery’s tasting room, I started thinking about the history of wine in the Los Angeles area.

I know there was a significant wine industry before prohibition, going back to California’s first professional winemaker in the mid-1800s – Jean Louis Vignes. [Great name!]

And of course, there is San Antonio Winery in Downtown Los Angeles, which was founded in 1917, survived Prohibition by making communion wines, and is still going strong, producing and distributing wines under several labels.

Other old timers are Joseph Filippi in Rancho Cucamonga [where there used to be a lot of Zinfandel planted] and Galleano in Mira Loma.

I have a vague recollection of somebody having a tasting room in the San Fernando Valley on Sepulveda a few decades ago. Does anyone else remember this?

And now there are several wineries operating in the hills of Malibu.

Over the next several months, I am planning to explore past and present winemaking in the greater Los Angeles Area, interspersed with my increasingly sporadic articles about other wine topics. I am really looking forward to this, as I expect it to be a journey of discovery for me.  If any of Eve’s Wine 101 readers have input on this subject, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you, at either of my emails listed below.

Michael Perlis provides outsourced controller services to businesses that do not need a full-time controller. He balances this with his interest in wine: reading and writing about it and, of course, drinking it. He is still trying to figure out how to combine these two pursuits. Feel free to contact him about either at mcpfinancial@aol.com or michaelthezinfan@aol.com.

4 thoughts on “Journey of Discovery by Michael Perlis

  1. At the beginning of the last century (early 1900's), I think there were a total of 100 wineries in the Los Angeles area. Apart from the newer ones near Malibu (and let's not forget Moraga), there are only a handful near Rancho Cucamonga. If you ever get a chance, go check-out the remaining old vine zinfandel vines (more like stubs) along Int. 15 out there. They would make you cry!

  2. Hi Chad.

    Yeah, L.A. was quite the Napa in the good old days.

    Been to Cucamonga; given my love of old vine zin, it was pretty sad.

    Michael

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