Return of the Native: Little-Known California Wineries where Napa and Sonoma Counties are Nowhere to be Found

If you are looking for a truly unique wine country vacation, for a place that conjures the true American spirit of hard work, persistence and perseverance, nowhere in California calls out to you more than the little-known wineries of the Inland Empire!

Though the Inland Empire is perhaps most known for the growing success of Temecula’s wine industry, there are even lesser known wineries – and an equally lesser-known wine history – in neighboring cities like Rancho Cucamonga, Mira Loma, and Fontana, California.

These cities became a part of what is known as the Rancho Cucamonga-Guasti Wine District. The history of the district dates back to as far as the 19^th Century, when immigrants from Italy’s Piedmont region, as well as others, moved to the area, populating such cities as Etiwanda, Cucamonga, Guasti, Mira Loma, Grapeland, and Fontana. At one point, there were as many as 41 bonded wineries in the Cucamonga Valley, with enough storage and fermentation capacity to produce over 13 million gallons of wine a year.

Also noteworthy is the fact that, in 1968, Cucamonga Valley actually accounted for 98% of the estimated 47.5 million bottles of wine that were produced in the Southern California wine district. This means that as late as the 20^th Century, Cucamonga Valley was a powerhouse of production sprawled across as much as 40,000 acres of vines that even included such fabled wine country as Santa Barbara County. Compare this to the 1995 numbers for the valley, when there were only 2,000 acres farmed and 5 bonded wineries in operation.

The biggest reason for the valley’s decline is the fact that the sweet wines produced in the region fell out of favor with the wine-drinking public. With the rise of Northern California’s Napa Valley and environs, as well as a new crop of winemakers who approached winemaking from a different, albeit more educated, perspective, Cucamonga Valley began the decline that has left it with its few remaining wineries, wineries that are still standing strong.

Wineries such as Joseph Filippi Winery in Rancho Cucamonga and Galleano Winery in Mira Loma are carrying on the proud tradition of the Cucamonga-Guasti Wine District. To this end, winemaker Gino L. Filippi actually petitioned the Department of Treasury in 1995 on behalf of local area growers and vintners. The petition was filed in order to have the Cucamonga Valley officially approved as an American Viticultural Area (AVA).

The approved law now enables the valley’s producers to designate “Cucamonga Valley” on their wine labels as long as the wines themselves contain 75% or more of wine from grapes grown in the valley.

With the aid of enology, the Inland Empire has shown that premium wines can indeed be consistently grown from the Cucamonga Valley. Fruit from the valley is even sourced from the state of California from notable wineries, such as Callaway, Firestone, Norman Vineyards, and South Coast Winery.

In addition to the efforts of Joseph Filippi Winery for the recognition and preservation of the Cucamonga Valley, there are also the accolades of Galleano Winery in Mira Loma that help to highlight the importance and influence that the Cucamonga Valley has had – and still has – on wine-making in California. The Galleano Winery happens to be Riverside County’s oldest winery. It was designated as a County Historical Landmark and a State of California Point of Historical Interest in 1993. Additionally, in 2003 it was also added to the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historic Places.

With such an impressive history to preserve, it is no wonder that organizations like the Cucamonga Valley Viticultural Conservancy have been created. It is an effort to preserve and to educate the valley’s inhabitants to the rich culture right under their feet. In this way, perhaps the preservation and education that the Cucamonga Valley hopes to engage its own inhabitants with can expand, so that not only the Cucamonga Valley, but the inhabitants of California, the wine growing regions of California and the world, and the U.S. in general, can be educated as to the history and legacy of one of California’s richest historical treasures.

Current wineries in the Cucamonga Valley, such as J. Filippi Winery, Galleano, Brandt Family Winery, The Wine Tailor (which operates out of the historic Thomas Winery, which is no longer a working vineyard but has the honor of being designated as the oldest commercial winery in California and the second oldest in the United States), and Rancho de Philo, as well as driven winemakers like Dana Chandler in Upland and Ron Mittino in Claremont, are showing that although the Cucamonga Valley wines might not match the status or structure of those found in Napa Valley up north or Santa Barbara County further south, they provide a unique and award-winning range of wines that speak to the complexity and richness of the Cucamonga Valley, and show what the valley and California still have to offer the wine-tasting world.

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