How many vines in a California Mission Vineyard in 1830?

The Missions were founded and developed over a twenty to thirty year period of that included the addition of outbuildings, crops, cattle, vineyards, and wineries. Each site gradually came to its peak during the decades of the 1830s and 1840s. The chart included here lists the maximum number of grape vines at each Mission during this period.

In the 1830s the Franciscans produced as much as 50,000 gallons of wine a year at the San Gabriel Mission, the fourth of 21 missions founded in California on September 8, 1771. The San Gabriel Mission, built from 1791 to 1805 with brick, mortar, and cut stone, was designed by Father Antonio Cruzado and is the oldest structure of its kind south of Monterey. The Franciscans planted the first working vineyard in California. There is a large “mother vine,” planted in 1861, which has grown to remarkable size and length.  The vine’s DNA has been tested by UC Davis. It is the same variety as the original vines brought from Spain and it still producing grapes.