I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.

I'm Levy Dalton.

I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, California has such a fascinating history of wine production.

Anthropologists confirm that people have been living in modern day California for well over 10,000 years.

But there is not much archaeological evidence to support that fermented were popular.

There is some evidence of possible fermented beverages made from elderberries,

mansinita, and wild grapes near the coast.

But no fines point to overwhelming evidence that fermented

were important to the first cultures that

inhabited modern day California.

In the 1500s, the Spanish began to settle in Central and South America. By 1542, the Spanish crown laid claim

to modern day California and missionaries came to establish religious outposts.

The Franciscans really got things going viticulturally in California.

As early as 1540, they had planted mission grapes in Mexico.

By 1629, there were mission vineyards in New Mexico and Baja and in 1779

Franciscan Junipero Serra had Mission Grapes planted in San Diego.

Serra was an interesting guy. He believed his purpose was to convert

local populations in California to Christianity and he traveled on foot despite a bad

leg which suffered from a bad snake bite earlier in his life.

And he gave zealous sermons that sometimes involved self mortification.

He established nine missions and confirmed around 5,000 people.

All of these confirmations needed Sacramento wine and he had vineyards planted at his missions to supply his need.

...