History
The name "Mendocino" comes from the family name of Mendoza in honor of the 16th century Spanish explorer Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza, 4th conde de la Coruña who explored the Mendocino coast line and his cousin, Antonio de Mendoza the first viceroy of New Spain. The first vineyards in Mendocino were established in the 1850s in the Redwood Valley by returning farmers who failed to find their wealth and prosperity during the California Gold Rush. Most of these winery operations stayed small and were completely eradicated by the enactment of Prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. With the commercial production of wine banned, vineyards were ripped out and replaced with tree nut and fruit orchards.
The oldest continually operating commercial winery in Mendocino County is Parducci Wines founded in 1931 while Prohibition was still in place. Parducci remained the only commercial winery in Mendocino until the late 1960s. Part of this was due to the relative isolation of the region from the major wine market and business center of San Francisco (more than a 100 miles/160 km to the south), which was so pivotal to the development of the wine industries in nearby Napa and Sonoma County. In 1968, Fetzer Vineyards was founded and would eventually grow to be the largest wine producers in the county. Fetzer would also become a leader in steering the viticultural practices of the county towards more sustainable agriculture and organic wine production. Today nearly 25% of all the vineyards in the Mendocino County are certified organic by the California Certified Organic Farmers-the largest percentage of any county in the state of California.
Read more about this topic: Mendocino County Wine
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