PTV CONNECTS TO ABQ

Plant the Vine is about connection. Connection to the land, connection to the history of the land and connection to the history of the people who lived, and still live, on the land that today we call Los Angeles.

PTV also connects us to distant times and distant places. After all, viticulture goes back thousands of years, to the ancient world, and not just to Europe but to Africa, the Middle East, China and Central Asia. Beyond that, there is the Mission grape, which connects us to indigenous lands throughout the Americas.

One of those places is New Mexico, which began cultivating the grape almost 150 years before it arrived in Los Angeles. It took a different route to get there, up through the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, which ran from Mexico City, as opposed to up from the Baja peninsula, where L.A.'s grape came from. But it was always the same grape, the one the Spanish first brought to the New World from the Canary Islands in the early 1500s.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro

Known by a variety of names throughout the Americas, the grape today also goes by Listan Prieto in Spain, Pais in Chile, Criolla Chica in Argentina and Mision in Mexico. In California alone, the grape has had a variety of other names, from Rosa de Peru to Sonoma and even the Los Angeles grape. It also has a history of plantings in Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil.

The grape can still be found in New Mexico as well. In Albuquerque, the state's largest city, a vineyard containing the grape grows in the ABQ BioPark, which sits along the Rio Grande that runs through town. It was planted some years ago, not to make wine but to remember history.

Dormant vines in Albuquerque's BioPark

Elsewhere in New Mexico, the grape is being rediscovered by winemakers, with new plantings in the southern part of the state. And in the north, near the border with Colorado, an old vineyard of Mission grapes is being restored, both for historical interest and for making wine.

Meanwhile, in an example of how urban vineyards can help build community, the BioPark plans to establish a library vineyard showcasing more modern grape varieties, including hybrids, to help home winegrowers in Albuquerque choose the best grapes for current and future soil and climate conditions.

Studying the Mission grape and mapping its migrations from one indigenous land to another gives us a unique window through which to consider colonialism and indigenous history, not just from a viticultural perspective, but from the perspective of those who worked the land, planted the vines and harvested the grapes.

As Angelenos living on un-ceded land where Mission grapes were first planted 250 years ago, or in New Mexico, where it's been closer to 400 years, it's important to connect with this legacy so that we may uncover hidden narratives and sustain a broader and fuller accounting of our history.