Fall 2015 • The Quarterly Magazine 1

4 The Quarterly Magazine • Fall 2015 Fall 2015 • The Quarterly Magazine 5

C E L E B R A T I N G 2 9 Y E A R S

V o l u m e T w e n T y n i n e , n u m b e r T h r e e / F a l l 2 0 1 5

18allied Forces

Parlez-vous Freedomand Friendship?

23a sTylish eVening ouT in

PasadenaPasadena Museum of History

26Ten Thousand Villages

International Artisans Benefit the World

28geTaway: cleVeland rocks!

The Rock ‘n’ RollCapital of the World

32honoring The dead

Festivals Around the Globe

34going PriVaTe

Why Choose a Progressive School?

37PriVaTe school direcTory

46caliFornia wine

Los Angeles Grown and Raised

50broadway aT The Playhouse

San Gabriel Valley Music Theatre

52annual Fall harVesT FesTiVal

Underwood Family Farms

56This monTh in hisTory

57Fall eVenTs guide

64ProFessional serVices direcTory

65adVerTisers direcTory

8“hollywood”

Sign of the Times

10Xcor aerosPace

Spaceflight Participants Visit Mojave

12usc Vs. idaho

A Memorabilia Story

14The legend oF coFFee

Los Angeles Coffee Houses

16classic car show

Police and Fire DepartmentOpen House

el día de los muerTos or day oF The dead is one oF The many FesTiVals around The world ThaT honors The dead. see Page 32

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SUMMER INTERNSJessica Idenoshita

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Riesling is a white grape variety, thought to have originated in Germany,

that is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling white wines.

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The Quarterly Magazine is distributed four times a year by mail to residences and businesses in Bradbury, Chapman Woods, La Cañada Flintridge, San Marino, South Pasadena and selected areas of Pasadena, Monrovia, Sierra Madre and Glendale, with a circulation of approximately 40,000 complimentary copies. The magazine is also available at se-lected locations in surrounding communities. Please patronize the advertisers who make this magazine possible.The Quarterly Magazine is published four times a year by SCG Publish-ing, LLC. Mailed subscriptions are available for $15/year.For additional information, visit thequarterly.com or contact us at (626) 799-1161, advertising@thequarterly.com, 625 Fair Oaks Ave., Ste. 160, South Pasadena, CA 91030

William Ericson PUBLISHER 1987 – 2012

46 The Quarterly Magazine • Fall 2015 Fall 2015 • The Quarterly Magazine 47

SSeptember is California Wine Month and celebrates one of our most treasured agricultur-

al products, the wine grape. Acres of vineyard grapes are gathered throughout the state, which produc-es 90% of the nation’s wine from its lush soil. Vintners, or winemakers, have carefully selected only the best grapes. Now, when vines are at their ripest, the product will be gathered for the crushing, fermentation, and aging process. The fine wines of Cal-ifornia are world renown, and what is developed in quality is also pro-duced in quantity. The state is in fact the world’s fourth largest producer of wine, coming after that of the entire countries of France, Italy and Spain.

But the true history behind the wine, and today’s Los Angeles (L.A..) wine culture, is much more than the numbers and science. For Angelenos, wine is the story behind the cities and streets they call home today. The his-tory of California wine starts with the Mission Era as the Spanish estab-lished a foothold in the Alta California region (the current state of California and other states to the east). Father

by Je s s i c a mo o g

Los Angeles Grown and RaisedcaliFornia wine

Junipero Serra, leading the initial ex-pedition in 1769, landed in San Diego. Although legend often attributes the planting of the first mission grapes to Serra in San Diego, letters from the Franciscan indicate he first requested vine cuttings in 1777. They were im-mediately taken to the rich soil of the fledgling Mission San Juan Capistrano

and then distributed to other locations. In September 1781, settlers from

the newly founded Mission San Ga-briel traveled nine miles to establish El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula. This initial town would be built along the bends of the Rio Porciuncula, where wild grapevines were abundant. Since the townspeople were accus-tomed to drinking a more cultivated variety of wine with meals, civilian (non-Mission or military) vineyards were planted. Los Angeles’s first civil-ian vineyard was also the first in all of Alta California. José Maria Verdugo, a soldier of the San Gabriel guard, had the opportunity to take vine cuttings from the Mission and transplant them to soil just outside of the pueblo. His land, Rancho San Rafael, was known as “La Zanja,” or “the water ditch.” Today, the Glendale ABC studios, on the border of Burbank, stand where La Zanja would have been.

As other aspiring vineyardists and local families put in vines, by 1818, L.A. boasted of as many as 53,000 vines, almost 50% of those in all of California. The first American to grow on record was Joseph Chapman. After putting in 4,000 of his own vines by 1826, he stayed in L.A. for a decade and established the Golden State’s first commercial winery. As ranches grew and vineyards flourished, the winemaking business became lucra-

tive. William Wolfskill and Jean-Lou-

is Vignes, more businessmen than ranchers, became prominent local fig-ures and their influence spread across the state. These giants established San Gabriel Valley as we know it today. The existing Downtown L.A. Arts District made up part of Wolfskill’s ex-pansive ranch, while Vignes’s winery

is on current Union Station property. Vignes, a Frenchman, made waves

in the American wine community by importing vines from his home coun-try in order to bring a new taste to Cal-ifornia. The Mission Grape, popular with the Spanish for its heartiness, had long been the only product of the area. Now Vignes’s well-established acres meant California abundance, with a

The san anTonio winery was esTablished in 1917 by iTalian caTholic sanTo cam-bianica, who snagged an eXclusiVe con-TracT wiTh The archdiocese oF l.a., suP-Plying all oF The church’s sacramenTal wine For mass during The ProhibiTion.

Jean-louis Vignes, “The FaTher oF cal-iFornia winemaking” made waVes in The american wine communiTy by imPorTing Vines From his home counTry in order To bring a new TasTe To caliForniaThe sTaTe oF caliFornia is The world’s FourTh largesT Producer oF wine.

48 The Quarterly Magazine • Fall 2015 Fall 2015 • The Quarterly Magazine 49

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fine-wine taste the world could not ignore. Today, “the father of California winemaking” has a street named af-ter him. Vignes Street runs parallel to L.A.’s concrete river, meeting with Ce-sar Chavez Avenue at the Metro head-quarters. Downtown residents might also recognize Aliso Street, another nod to Vignes, who earned the name “Don Luis del Aliso” for his property’s impressive sycamore tree.

In 1869, L.A. was producing as many as four million gallons of wine each year. It was the wine capital of the state, and the city’s geography continued to be defined by the vast vineyards of its diverse property own-ers. Many were immigrants, bringing with them a variety of growing prac-tices and new types of wine. Their swatches of land passed between gen-erations, often through marriage.

In present-day Alhambra, “the largest winery in the world” was be-ing built, under the direction of Ben-jamin “Don Benito” Wilson and his son-in-law James DeBarth Shorb. The massive project began in 1867, and its expansive vaults were meant to hold enough product to quench the thirst of the expanding California popula-tion. Following the Gold Rush, the state was flooded with new custom-ers. Notable wine historian Thomas Pinney said of these defining years, “San Francisco was where wine was drunk, but Los Angeles was where it was made.”

By the 1880s, it became clear that the space might be needed for more than just California consumers. Grape

phylloxera was ravaging Europe-an vineyards; this was a disease so devastating that many believed the continent would never grow grapes again. Shorb’s winery reached a stor-age capacity of over a million barrels in preparation, while the international wine community worked towards a solution. Eventually, European vines had to be painstakingly grafted onto immune American rootstock, and in this way the European wine industry was saved.

Wilson, or Don Benito, continued to be a household name. His success in real estate put him at the helm of Rancho San Pasqual, which became the cities of Pasadena and Altadena. Wilson’s winery remained at his home at Lake Vineyard, today’s San Marino (named for his son-in-law’s family plantation in Maryland). Today’s Lake Street, a major thoroughfare cutting through all three cities, derives its name from the vineyard. Mount Wil-son, one of the tallest peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains, was named for its one-time landowner and is now es-sential to television and radio broad-casting for the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Shorb and Wilson’s properties shared borders with the properties of other illustrious figures, including Lucky Baldwin. A famed business-man from Ohio, Baldwin produced brandy and wine from his Santa Anita winery. Today, overlooking the Santa Anita Racetrack he founded, a surviv-ing winery building still stands (now repurposed as a storage facility). His

aggregate properties were so vast that they now make up the entirety of cur-rent-day Arcadia and Monrovia.

Even as Baldwin and others turned the San Gabriel Valley into a glamour spot in the early 18th century, danger loomed ahead for Los Angeles wine. Only a decade later, Prohibition was on the horizon. By October 1919, both the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act had passed, allow-ing legislation to be enacted. Once thriving wineries were now forced to shut down production and cease bulk export, windows were shuttered and things looked grim for commercial wine.

There were two notable excep-tions to the Prohibition injunction that kept wine alive in L.A. Even as all of its competitors closed for good, the San Antonio Winery saw big orders coming in. Started by Italian Catholic Santo Cambianica, he snagged an ex-clusive contract with the Archdiocese of L.A., supplying all of the church’s sacramental wine for Mass. This part-nership allowed the winery to not only wait out the ban, but to also con-tinue growing in repute. The San An-tonio Winery (established in 1917) still exists today, proudly boasting of its 98 years of operation in Downtown L.A. It still sits on the same land on which it was founded and offers daily wine tastings and tours.

Besides allowing for altar wine, the Volstead Act permitted each head of household to make up to two hun-dred gallons of any “fruit juice,” to be used for family consumption. Al-though California winemaking took a nosedive in product quality, vineyard acreage nearly doubled by 1927. This surge was short lived in L.A., but it signaled a rise in small, underground wineries and an increase in heartier grape varieties to be sent to the East Coast for “personal consumption.” Growing wine grapes proved to be a profitable future for other parts of the state, but for L.A.’s historic properties, the damage was done.

As late as the 1940s, Los Angeles remained the county’s top agriculture county. Even so, urbanization was a force more powerful than any vine disease or amendment. Properties were sold off piece by piece until cit-

ies simply didn’t have the land neces-sary for wineries, let alone vineyards. Today, Cucamonga remains the most productive growing area, followed only by Malibu, which has quickly be-come a hotbed for wine-growing de-bate. The North Santa Monica Moun-tains have become a popular site for small vineyards, with a reported 51 applications in the last year (up from three in 2013-14). This growth has been met with a vineyard ban from the Los Angeles County over water usage concerns. The fight continues at the County Board level, with impas-sioned new landowners pushing back on the recent sanction.

It is apparent that Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley have come

a long way from their humble begin-nings as a Spanish presidio. Residents have a storied history of wine to thank for familiar street signs and landmarks, many of us passing by each day with-out recognizing the significance of the names. Olvera Street, once named Wine Street, stands as a piece of the founding town, while the Santa Anita Racetrack and park stands on prop-erty first frequented by wine-country visitors, and The Huntington in San Marino showcases property first cul-tivated by famed vineyardists. This year’s California Wine Month comes during a resurgence of interest in wine culture, making it the perfect chance for Los Angeles to recognize and cel-ebrate its extraordinary roots.

Visible in The disTance in This 1857 PhoTo oF The los angeles Plaza, el aliso’s immense syc-amore Tree resulTed in Vignes earning The name “don luis del aliso”. courTesy oF The PhoTo collecTion, los angeles Public library.