History and Historic Sites of the Valley * Then and Now Photos * Lost Crescenta * Rockhaven * Membership and Donations
The untold story of California's wine heritage flows from its Los Angeles beginnings. The renowned California wine industry was born near El Pueblo de Los Angeles. Spanish missionaries cultivated enormous vineyards at Mission San Gabriel. Their replanted vine-cuttings took root on Jose Maria Verdugo's 1784 Spanish land-grant in what became Glendale. Jean Louis Vignes brought Bordeaux winemaking experience to L.A. in 1831, and initiated wine trade with San Francisco. By 1848, Los Angeles contained 100 vineyards. Author Stuart Douglass Byles traces the little known L.A. wine tradition through vintners of the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys, Anaheim and Rancho Cucamonga, Temecula Valley and Malibu, and details the San Antonio Winery heritage, a holdover business from old Los Angeles days. Stuart Douglass Byles is a founding member of the Stone Barn Vineyard Conservancy, a sponsored volunteer organization of the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, set up in 2007 to promote and celebrate the wine history of the surrounding area and maintain the commemorative vineyard at the Deukmejian Wilderness Park in Glendale.
Regular meetings are held the third Monday of each month at 7:00 PM at the the Center for Spiritual Living, formerly known as the La Crescenta Church of Religious Science located at the intersection of Dunsmore and Santa Carlotta.