New Mexico looking to rebound in winemaking

Apr. 12—The birthplace of winemaking in the United States can be found just south of Socorro.

"It goes back to 1629 in the beginnings of this wine industry," Chris Goblet, executive director of New Mexico Wine, said. "The start of this is all about the Spanish coming into New Mexico and smuggling vines from Spain to plant their own vineyard. At that time Spain required these people to ship barrels of wine to the New World and then transport them from Mexico into New Mexico. And these priests, these monks decided, no, we're going to smuggle vines and we're going to make our own vineyard, our own grapes and produce our own wines. So that was the very beginning."

The grape that was planted is commonly known as the mission grape because the vines were planted at missions, churches and chapels, according to Goblet.

"It would have been a very light bodied fruity wine and they would not have preservatives," Goblet explained. "They would have saved it and made a new batch every year for sacrament. And that evolved into an industry. By the mid 1600s, you started to have great orchards all over New Mexico, fruit orchards, and then we started seeing the planting of vines all up and down the Rio Grande."

One of the big products produced in the El Paso-Las Cruces area was grape brandy. Grape brandy preserves over time allowing it to be stored.

"From 1629 to the 1660s, you're seeing a lot of different vineyard planting along the Rio Grande," Goblet explained. "Then in the 1700s, things kind of changed a little bit. You get some French influence and a lot of the French people moved to Corrales... But you had a huge French expat community in Corrales and they plant these small backyard vineyards 1 acre, 2 acres, and that's why Corrales has that feeling of the vineyards in Burgundy, France."

In the 1800s, growing grapes extended to Isleta Pueblo leading to New Mexico becoming the fifth largest wine producing state in America with over a million gallons of wine per year. That would change in 1890 with the creation of refrigerated train cars that brought California wines into New Mexico via railroad.

"Within five years, the entire wine industry (in New Mexico) basically shut down," Goblet said. "By around 1895, California took over and never looked back."

Rebirth in 1976

There would be a resurgence with sacramental wine transitioning to industrial production with the help of Christian Brothers Winery, which was located in Bernalillo. Fast forward to 1976 to the birth of the modern wine industry. There are currently 57 operating wineries in the state.

"You had La Viña Winery in 1976, file for their license, and you have La Chiripada Winery in Dixon, also in the summer of '76," Goblet explained. "That's the rebirth of the modern commercial wine industry in 1976. One in the north, one in the south, both are still operational today. You started to see some interest from Europeans in the late '70s and by '82 the Gruet family came over and established their vineyard in Engle, New Mexico, right next to Spaceport America (near Truth or Consequences)."

Winemaking would move up another level with Italians and Germans moving to the area.

"In '82 they brought all these Italians who know how to propagate vines and plant vineyards," Goblet said. "They had the Germans (who) make straight rows and engineer all the water and irrigation. And then you have the French who had put together a large investment group to come plant 5,000 acres of vines. Of that original planting, 80 acres are still in production in Engle and they're now managed by Noisy Water Winery."

There has been a slow reduction of acreage over the past 30 to 40 years.

"Vineyard acreage kind of would ebb and flow," Goblet said. "Something would be ripped out, somebody would plant some more, somebody would take a vineyard away, somebody would add a vineyard. The number kind of kept going up and down, but it really kind of hit a low point in the early 2020s."

Building toward the 400th anniversary

The New Mexico Vineyard Restoration Fund is hoping to change that. The $1 million grant program, created by the state legislature in 2022, aims to replant 400 acres of vines across the Land of Enchantment. New Mexico Wine, formerly known as the New Mexico Wine & Grape Growers Association, manages the funds. The New Mexico Department of Agriculture and New Mexico State University oversee the program and report monthly to the New Mexico Department of Finance Authority.

"Step one for us, sort of building up to our 400th anniversary, is we need to replant vineyards and that takes three years for those vines to produce," Goblet said. "We're investing now in having more acreage, more grapes, which means we're going to be able to make more wine."

As part of the grape planting, New Mexico Wine is experimenting with different grape varieties.

"We don't want to try and just follow California Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay," Goblet said. "We're trying to find the grapes that thrive in New Mexico under current conditions. These are grapes that are indigenous to Greece and Romania, new Italian varietals, new French varietals, and then American hybrids."

Grapes that are drought resistant, heat resistant, or cold resistant will be part of the planting to increase overall acreage.

"All of our vineyards are between the elevation of 3,800 feet and 6,500 feet," Goblet said. "That's some of the highest elevation vineyards in the entire United States. It's more akin to Argentina in terms of elevation. We call it high elevation grape growing."

Grape growing at a higher elevation has its advantages including being "very arid," which prevents disease, mold, and rot in grapes. It also lends to a decrease in pests and bugs that can harm the grapes.

"We don't need to use herbicides and fungicides and pesticides because the climate is so dry and arid," Goblet said. "... The other thing is we're closer to the sun so our grapes can fully ripen, can fully mature and reach their greatest potential. There's a lot of unknown advantages to growing grapes in the high desert. Most educated wine drinkers don't even realize the benefits of high elevation grape growing."

New Mexicans have the luxury of trying the state's best wines each Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend during festivals held in Albuquerque and Las Cruces. New Mexico Wine is expanding that reach out of state to tastings in California, New York, Texas, and other states.

"They're getting accolades," Goblet said of New Mexico wines. "When we pour wines in California, they kind of sit back and go, 'Wow, you grew these grapes in New Mexico? You made these wines in New Mexico?' And so a lot of times, we just get sort of that spark of surprise, that sort of delight, that is so historic and traditional for us that we take it for granted, but for the rest of the world it is this new discovery."