The Atlantic Wine Trade, Jesuits, and Viticulture in the Spanish American Borderlands

Wine was an essential component of Spain’s transplantation of its culture to its New World colonies.  For social and religious reasons, Spanish culture could not exist without wine. At first haphazard, Spain’s Atlantic wine trade grew exponentially during the sixteenth century.  Shipments of wine to America quickly transformed the Seville hinterland in a few decades.  Wine from Andalucía competed with local wines in New Spain, but towards the end of his reign Phillip II prohibited the planting of vineyards in the New World to consolidate this industry (exceptions were made for ecclesiastics).  A promising industry in New Spain was snuffed out and wine exports to America soon became a cash cow for the Royal Treasury.  Advances in oenology made the wine (a precursor of today’s Sherry) able to withstand the heat and humidity of the transatlantic voyage.  Yet wine exports to New Spain and Spain’s circum-Caribbean possessions were never enough to satisfy demand (because of geography, the South American viceroyalties maintained a highly profitable viticulture industry in Peru, Chile, and Argentina). 

            Colonial Mexico City was famous for the many vinaterias that catered to Spaniards, creoles, and those who wanted to be seen as Spaniards (in contrast, castas and Indians frequented pulquerias).  But things were very different in the borderlands.  To satisfy demand that imported wine could not supply and develop the economy of the northern frontier, the Spanish Crown allowed viticulture to develop. Missionaries took the initiative, but soon winemaking became the most important economic activity of the northeastern borderlands.  In some areas, vino de Castilla and vino de Parras were offered.  This essay will trace de development of these wine trade networks across North America and the Atlantic, and show how the role of missionaries (in particular Jesuits) was instrumental in this process.