Tag: angelica

Deborah Hall, of Gypsy Canyon, Shows off Her Vines

Deborah Hall is the owner and winemaker for Gypsy Canyon. She’s not only a super nice lady, she makes some amazing wines, in particular, her Old Vines Angelica. This is a sherry-type wine that was made by the mission fathers throughout the southern parts of California. In fact, Angelica was supposedly named for the city of Los Angeles. 

Check out the video below and she tells about how she found the old vines of Mission grapes on her property. BTW, head-trained grapes are ones that are not put up on trellises. More about Deborah and how we got to know her below the video.

We got to know Deborah Hall when Michael started his own little ancient vines project here in Los Angeles. Michael got permission to harvest the grapes off of two vines at the oldest building still standing in Los Angeles, the Avila Adobe on Olvera Street. We’re pretty sure the vines were planted when the adobe was built in 1818, but there’s no way of knowing. The vines are well over 100 years old and are quite possibly the oldest vines in the state.

Once Michael found out that he was dealing with Mission grapes – a variety grown here by the Franciscans who built the California missions, he contacted Deborah Hall to get some pointers on how to make Angelica. Deborah was not only kind enough to share her recipe, she invited us up to lunch at her home and winery. She not only fed us and poured us her incredible wines, she took us out to see the grapes she’d found while clearing brush on her property. Anne had the video camera and we had a blast talking about old vines.

Some Hands-On Wine History Education

Grapes before they become wine - from the Olvera Street vine
Grapes before they become wine – from the Olvera Street vine

When we started OddBallGrape.com, we did not want the blog to be about us. Frankly, we’re not that interesting. Well, we weren’t, until Michael jumped into a wine history project that seems to have gotten all kinds of people more than a little excited.

In Real Life, Michael is the archivist for the city of Los Angeles – an insanely cool job. And as part of that job, he’s been working with Chris Espinoza, who is the director of El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the oldest part of the city. The two have been trying to find ways to connect what they do, since Michael has the paperwork and the history in his vault and Espinoza has, well, a state park, in which is located Olvera Street and one of the oldest buildings (if not the oldest) in the city, dating back to 1818. And way back when the adobe in question was actually being lived in, someone planted three grape vines, one across Olvera Street which was then known as Wine Street, one in the adobe’s courtyard and one just outside the adobe.

And last year or so, Michael asked Espinoza if he could trellis and prune the vines and see

What makes wine happen - yeast and yeast food.
What makes wine happen – yeast and yeast food.

if he could get some grapes off of them. Espinoza said yes, and Michael spent all last year, carefully pruning the courtyard vine, keeping an eye on things and consulting with Wes Hagen, a professional winemaker, who for years made the truly awesome Clos Pepe wines out of the Santa Rita Hills. Clos Pepe is now gone and Hagen has moved on to another venture. But he and Michael did convince the nice folks up at University of California, Davis, to do the DNA analysis on the vines for free and it turns out that these three vines came from the one remaining vine at Mission San Gabriel, one of the 21 missions founded by Father Junipero Serra in the late Eighteenth Century. For the record, the vines are known as “Vina Madre” a cross of the European vitis vinifera and a local Southern California grape called vitis girdiana.

Then in September, as Michael was beginning to harvest the few grapes there, Hagen ratted him out to S. Irene Virbila, the wine critic for the Los Angeles Times. Well, Virbila, being the good reporter she is, smelled a story and wrote it up.

Now, everyone is checking in and offering ideas. What Michael did decide to do is make a wine called Angelica (which we just heard was named for the city of Los Angeles). It was what the winemakers in L.A. were making up through the late 1870s, when Los Angeles was the primary wine growing and making region in the state (take that, Napa). Angelica is a sweet wine that is also fortified by adding brandy or other alcohol to the mix. We have about 25 pounds of grapes, so we won’t be getting very much. But it will be interesting and we promise to add updates in this space as we get them.

We're on our way! The yeast and yeast food being added to the grapes.
We’re on our way! The yeast and yeast food being added to the grapes.