Vignes Jean-Louis

French-born Jean-Louis Vignes (1780-1862) is an almost forgotten, important winegrowing pioneer of the USA. Yet he is considered California's first commercial winemaker. He emigrated from his homeland in 1827 to Sandwich Island, so named by James Cook, which is the island of Kauaʻi, now part of Hawaii. His wife (who never followed him) and his five children (three of whom also immigrated much later) stayed behind in Cadillac. He engaged there in viticulture, the cultivation of sugar cane, from which he distilled rum, and the breeding of cattle and turkeys. In the wake of a ban on alcohol imposed by the Protestant missionaries there and the destruction of the sugar cane fields, he immigrated to California in 1831 in what was then the Mexican era. Vignes bought 104 hectares of land on the banks of the Los Angeles River and began growing grapes on his estate, named "El Aliso".

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Vignes Jean-Louis

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