This 165-Year-Old Vine Produces One of Oregon’s Best Wines
All it took to create the white wine in my glass was an unruly horse, a woman in distress and a farmer with a grapevine to spare. This is one of Oregon’s more amazing wine stories.
One fine day in 1860, Clarissa “Clara” Birdseye was visiting her husband, David, at his business in Jacksonville, Oregon. Clara’s husband had moved to the Rogue Valley in the early 1850s to join southern Oregon’s gold rush. When the gold didn’t pan out, David opened a mercantile company with his uncle.
When Clara was ready to make the 15-mile return trip home, she hopped aboard her horse and pointed him in the right direction on Old Stage Road. The horse’s name was Prince, and Prince was in no mood to go anywhere.
Fortunately for Clara, Granville Sears was nearby as he tended his small vineyard. When Prince refused to budge, Sears ripped a grapevine from the ground and offered it to Clara.
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In the book “Clarissa – Her Family and Her Home,” by Effie and Nita Birdseye, Sears is said to have told Clara, “Here, use this for a persuader.” The extra encouragement (whether used as a carrot or stick) persuaded Prince to head straight home in a timely fashion.
Being an avid gardener and averse to wasting anything, Clara planted the vine behind her home. Her green thumb must have been powerful: that grapevine grew, and grew and grew.
165 years later, Clara’s “persuader” rises approximately 10 feet in the air as it spreads its branches over a wooden post trellis system designed to keep it from collapsing under its own weight. The thick, gnarled vine, which has survived everything from a house fire and ice storms to a tree falling on top of it, still produces grapes.
The Mystery of Mission Grapes
For more than a century, though, no one was sure what kind of grapes.
When Jolee and Rob Wallace of Del Rio Vineyards in nearby Gold Hill purchased the Birdseye property in 2016 to plant more Pinot Noir vines, they strongly suspected they had an old Mission vine on their hands. University of California, Davis scientists confirmed their suspicions two years later.
The Mission grape, whether you call it Listán Prieto, Pais, Criolla Chica or Misión, arrived in the Americas in the 1500s. Thanks to Franciscan and Jesuit friars, plantings of the grape spread alongside new mission constructions throughout the American southwest and by the late 1700s, California.
It is possible that Sears obtained his Mission vine cuttings from Peter Britt, a Jacksonville neighbor renowned for his photography and for helping to establish the southern Oregon wine industry. A 1907 account in the Morning Oregonian newspaper credits Britt with planting Mission vines that he brought up from California in 1854 or 1855.
It’s also possible that Sears got his cuttings from another neighbor, or from prospectors that brought vines with them when they abandoned California’s gold fields for Jacksonville’s. One thing is sure—a very old, very large Mission vine thrives within close proximity of Del Rio’s Gold Hill tasting room.
White, Bright and Rare
In 2016, Del Rio’s crew picked enough Mission fruit for head winemaker Jean-Michel Jussiaume to make approximately two cases of rosé. I found out about it too late to try it.
In 2024, Jussiaume took another stab at the Mission grapes, which were picked by standing in the bed of a pick-up truck. Thanks to regular pruning and a lot of TLC since 2016, the vine produced enough grapes to make 60 bottles.
This time, I made an early request to get a bottle. When the wine arrived, I was surprised to see it was the color of a pale moonbeam.
Jussiaume says he had planned to make another rosé, as he had done in 2016, “But I didn’t anticipate how quickly the color would fade during fermentation,” Jussiaume says. It would also be possible to make a red wine, Jussiaume notes, but it would require dropping some fruit early on to reach the ripeness needed for proper maceration.
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The wine was made in an appropriately old-fashioned way, with Jussiaume investing in a small hand crusher and a traditional wooden vertical press. “Both are modest tools, but they feel right for this kind of work,” Jussiaume says.
The Wallaces named their rare white wine “1860 Mission,” and it will be used only for special events.
I envy the people that get to drink those other 59 bottles. The wine’s apple and salted macadamia nut aromas are complemented by a sweet, coconut-like scent reminiscent of a lei made with plumeria flowers.
Bright acidity and a feathery texture provide the backdrop for the 1860 Mission’s Golden Delicious apple, lemon zest, wet stone and rosemary flavors. It also clocks in at low 10.5% abv. Who knew that sipping history could be so refreshing?
Jussiaume is fond of saying, “A good wine arouses curiosity.” In that case, the 1860 Mission is a great wine.
More Oregon Coverage
- Why Oregon’s Dundee Hills AVA is just right for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
- If you haven’t already, get to know Oregon wine beyond Pinot Noir.
- However, Pinot Noir still reigns supreme in the Willamette Valley. These are the bottles to try.
- How did Oregon become a Pinot Noir paradise, anyway? We explain.
- Meet the Oregon producers whose bottles are worth collecting.
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