The First Vineyards

The First Vineyards. . The Cucamonga Valley's earliest grape vines required the efforts and labor of a wide range of people - Spanish padres, Native American Indians, rebels from the American South, and disgruntled gold seekers, to name a few. Tuburcio Tapia was awarded over 13,000 acres on March 3, 1839 by the Mexican governor of Baja California, Juan Alvarado. Tapia's Rancho de Cucamonga covered much of the area we know today as Alta Loma, Etiwanda, Cucamonga, Upland, and Ontario. Although the region was only considered at best to be grazing land, Tapia's foreman Jose Maria Valdez planted the first vines from cuttings taken from the Mission San Gabriel's Madre. Tapia's adobe house and winery building were constructed probably by local Kucamongan Indians around 1839 and 1840; and the vineyard consisting of twelve rows of forty-seven vines each, flourished under Valdez's care., Four years after the American annexation, California became a state in 1850. The look of the Rancho de Cucamonga reflected these changes, especially the estate developed by Alabama-born John Rains and his wife Maria Merced Williams de Rains. The Rains purchased the Rancho de Cucamonga from Tapia's daughter and her French husband, Leon Victor Prudhomme, in 1858. Before his murder in 1862, Rains greatly expanded the vineyards Tapia had planted, and began producing what were considered quality wines.