“País de Résistance” – Hopes for a Heritage Mission Vineyard Planting in Texas

Those of you who read my recent blog (click here) know that in the dark of winter and the festivities of the past holiday season, I’ve gone down the proverbial “rabbit hole” of Texas’s early Spanish Mission vineyard legacy and its grape – Mission (also know as País, Criolla and Listan Prieto). For me, that blog started when I spotted a bottle of Chilean wine –  Bouchon País Viejo 2019 – at a local Houston wine shop. It was made with País grapes from 100-year-old vines, dry-farmed, native fermented, and unfiltered. It was a bit old-world “Pinotesque” and good, too.

I was no sooner finished posting this blog, when I was contacted by Dr. Bob Young, owner of Bending Branch Winery. He said that he read with interest my blog piece on the Mission grape and its historic place in Texas winemaking history. Then, he proceeded to inform me that his Ursa Vineyards in the Sierra Foothills was doing something with Mission grapes grown in California. Ursa sells its wines at Branch on High in Comfort and online.  

Knowing my interest in Mission grapes Young added, “Just this year we released our first Angelica [Brandy fortified Mission grape wine] from one of the few vineyards that is still growing the mission grape in California. Angelica was consumed in great quantities by the gold miners back in California gold rush days.” I also assume that this was the case on the Mexican/Texas frontier in old El Paso, Texas, too. Click here for link to Ursa Angelica.

I mentioned that while doing background research for my WineSlinger Chronicles book a decade ago I  found and tasted a Mission wine from Story Vineyards that has a 0.75 acre heritage Mission vineyard planted in 1894 (click here). I found no evidence of Mission grapes being growing in Texas., but there were anecdotes of a Texas vineyard with Mission grapes that was let go fallow sometime in the 1900s. I’m still lamenting the lack of a heritage Mission vineyard in Texas and would love for a grower, or two or more, to decide to establish heritage planting(s) in Texas with Mission grapes.  

I was surprised about a week later when a bottle of wine from Dr. Young showed up in Houston. It was a bottle of a Chilean wine – Pipeño País Coronel de Maule 2019 – 100% Pais from organic, dry-farmed, bush trained vines spontaneously fermented using indigenous yeasts. These grapes reportedly derive from 200 to 300 year old vines. The wine was made saigneé for concentration, then in part aged in stainless steel, large wooden tanks and some in clay vessels.

This wine came with a message from Young, “With your interest in the Texas Mission (País) grape, I thought you would find this wine of interest. The Pipeño is a wine I obtained for our staff’s varietal education. I just thought it would be good for our team to taste the first European grape to be grown and fermented into wine in the US and in Texas.”

Tasting the Pipeño País after the Bouchon, I feel that the Pipeño has a more “original” taste to what the wines of old may have been like, but without being oxidized as many likely were. Both wines were red-berry dominant, but the Pipeño expressed more earthiness and dry-minerally character likely originating from its time in clay. Clay pots (along with hides) were the prevalent wine storage devices in Texas during the early Spanish missionary period. 

Alas, with respect to establishing a heritage Mission plantings in Texas, I have not found any leads that might locate any residual plant material left in Texas. I recently spoke with notable Texas “oldtimers” Charles McKinney and Tommy Qualia, and longtime wine consultant Dr. Enrico Ferro, who helped the start-up of the modern Texas wine industry, and still I came up empty-handed. Mission vine stock may be available from one of the existing Mission vineyards in California, Mexico, or much farther away Chile. Vine stock does appear to be available through Foundation Plant Services in California (click here). Listings include 9 Mission source materials:

If there are any Texas grape growers out there that are interested in bringing back a planting of Mission grapes to Texas for their historic value or for the recent resurgence of interest in the its wines by young, edgy sommeliers, please by all means give it a go AND please keep me posted so that I can chronicle the process.