South Valley Wineries
Rich in History
An excerpt from Images of America , Wineries of Santa Clara Valley by Bev Stenehjem
Verde Vineyards
2143 Buena Vista Gilroy • 408.848.5907 verdevineyards . com
Open : 12 -5 pm First & Third Weekends
Founded : 2017
“ We are excited to be a new part of the South Bay wine scene and look forward to positively contributing to the Santa Clara Valley wine industry . Our first releases have already received 90 + point wine ratings and gold medals and our new vintages will be even better .”
Lynda & George Green , Owners
Most Celebrated Wine Our 2015 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon .
Future Plans We are getting ready to bottle some new wines to add to our award winning current releases that will give our customers even more to taste . As our vineyards mature , our production and quality will continue to rise .
Wine Club : Coming Soon
The wineries of Santa Clara Valley have a rich history , dating back to the 1700s . First came the Spaniards , then the Frenchmen , and finally the Italians . The secret was out , the mild climate here in Santa Clara Valley was ideal , not only for growing vines , but also for living comfortably . The Spanish padres founded Mission Santa Clara in 1777 and seeing snarls of native grapevines climbing the trees along the creeks and valley , they knew that their grape cuttings would thrive here . Although the quality of the wine varied , much of it was crude and mostly used for religious purposes .
In the mid-1800s , the French started to arrive , first lured to the Sierra Mountains by the Gold rush and then settling in the San Jose area for all the good land available . The French greatly improved the quality of wines by planting the right varietals and employing years of established techniques to improve vineyard health and grape quality .
By 1880 , the Italians came in droves , bringing their fruit-growing skills and hard work ethic to share in the bounty of the Santa Clara Valley . The Italians did most of the pruning , with centuries of best practices behind them .
Thousands of acres were planted in grapevines . Most of the young wine was sold to the growing population and restaurants in San Francisco-oftentimes finished and blended there for further sale and shipped off to other parts of the country .
The booming wine industry almost ground to a halt in the early 1900s . First , phylloxera appeared-a tiny , sap-sucking aphid that threatened to wipe out most of the vineyards . As winemakers struggled to stop the devastation of this pest , in 1906 , the San Francisco earthquake hit . The resulting fires destroyed 15 million gallons of wine and several major wine cellars .
With little time to recuperate from phylloxera and the earthquake , Prohibition started in 1920 , criminalizing the manufacture and sale of wine . And to cap it all off , the Great Depression began in 1929 . People could hardly afford bread , let along wine .
Many of our wineries tore out their remaining vineyards and sought other ways to make a living . However , more than a few of our valley winemakers stayed the course , keeping their vineyards alive by either selling their wine to a church ( which was legal ) or secretly selling their wines to people of all walks of life , including the police and other government officials . Trapdoors , secret cellars , and get-away cars were the name of the game . With the end of Prohibition in 1933 , the wineries slowly made a comeback . For the next 30 years or so , most wine was called jug wine . People would bring their own jugs to the wineries and ask for a fill up . They had two choices : red or white . Wines were usually a blend of several kinds of grapes , and the varietals or vintage years were not specified .
In the mid-1900s , the Santa Clara Valley was a profusion of orchards and vineyards from one end to the other . Our wine region famously became called the Valley of Heart ’ s Delight .
When the Judgment of Paris occurred in 1976 , the California wine industry exploded . At a blind tasting of French and American wines , an all-French panel of wine experts award d the top honors to several California wines . Mayhem ensued when the French wine judges learned that the California wines had won . Several of the judges stormed out in protest , bitterly denouncing the contest .
The mystique of Old World , French wines gave way to the New World of California wines as the finest in the world . In fact ,
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GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2018 gmhtoday . com