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País - The Grape on a Mission
There are few red wines better suited for the dog days of August than País. A lightly pigmented red grape, its berries and clusters are large and its yields are high. The result is red wines that are so light in color and tannin, they teeter on the edge of a dark rosé. Chillable and refreshing, País offers a take on red wine that seems new. In truth, the grape is anything but.
País’s history spans centuries, and it is, rather, the oldest commercial wine grape in three of the world’s largest wine producing countries: Chile, Argentina, and the United States. It goes by a different name in each, and its impact is still felt and evolving.
From Spain to South America
País’s story begins far from it ends. Native to Spain’s Castilla-La Mancha, the grape was likely first called Palomina Negra, before later becoming more widely known as Listán Prieto. In the 16th century, Listán Prieto was brought from Castilla-La Mancha to the Canary Islands—an important stopover point in transatlantic colonial trade. While Listán Prieto went effectively extinct in mainland Spain during the 19th century phylloxera crisis, small quantities still grow in the Canaries today.
But around the same time Listán Prieto was introduced to the Canary Islands, it also crossed the ocean to South America. During the Age of Exploration, the European vine was one of the earliest crops introduced by Spanish conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries to the New World. The predominant variety they brought to both Argentina and Chile was Listán Prieto, which they identified simply as Uva Negra or “black grape.” The name later changed in each country. In the mid-19th century the Chileans called it País (simply “country”) while the Argentinians called it Criolla Chica (“Creole girl”). Up until that point, País and Criolla Chica had remained the most important variety in each country for three centuries, just then usurped by grapes like Malbec, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Although its role has diminished with time, approximately 13,000 hectares of País are still grown in Chile, mainly in Bío Bío and Maule. Much of this includes old vines—often exceeding 100 years in age. Their wines count among the most prized and concentrated examples of the variety found globally. Contemporary plantings in Argentina are scant, but Criolla Chica’s legacy there is largely felt by two of the Torrontés varieties. These are white, floral grapes Criolla Chica parented with Muscat of Alexandria, and are among Argentina’s signature white wines.
California Dreaming
While País’s plantings today are more robust in Chile, the variety was equally consequential in the founding of many of North America’s wine industries. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in the early 16th century, they found native American grapes growing in the land surrounding today’s Mexico City. With little success fermenting the local cultivars into wine, Hernán Cortés mandated all Spanish colonies in North America harvest Old World grape varieties and had cuttings imported from Spain. Among them was Listán Prieto, which eventually gained the name Misión in Mexico, referencing the Spanish Franciscan missions in which it was grown.
Misión eventually became Mission when it crossed the border into California. As early as 1769, Father Junípero Serra is credited with bringing those first Mission vines to what later become the Golden State. From that first mission in San Diego, the grape marched north up the Pacific coastline along with the Fathers who planted it at each new outlet until they reached Sonoma and established the Mission San Francisco Solano, the 21st and last mission. Early Mission grapes were converted into a sweet wine called Angelica. The elixir was so named potentially in relation to Los Angeles, though it is also theorized it derives from the herb, a reference to the wine’s savory, rustic qualities. The precise nature of the original Angelica wines is debated—some were likely fortified, others not—and primary sources from the 18th and 19th centuries praise the unique abilities of different California missions to craft distinctive Angelicas. It was not until the latter half of the 1800s that Mission was surpassed as the bedrock of California’s nascent wine industry through the introduction of additional European grapes.
Returning to Their Roots
While recent centuries saw the importance of País eclipsed in each of the countries where it was cultivated, the variety has enjoyed a small renaissance of late. As winegrowers worldwide scour their industries’ histories and reclaim heritage traditions, techniques, and varieties, País has been an important part of that story in the Americas.
Although many País vineyards have been uprooted over the years in favor of French and other international grapes, many, fortunately, have remained untouched. Those centenary País vineyards count among the greatest vinous treasures and wealth of old vine material in both North and South America—especially Chile and California. In both locales, País has found a new audience actively seeking out lighter-bodied, often chillable red wines. There is substantial overlap between these new interpretations of País and the natural wine community, fermenting the grape into low intervention styles. It’s not uncommon to find Mission or País pet-nat today, a frothy, fruit-forward, joyful expression of the variety. In California, several winegrowers have taken up the baton of Angelica—reading old texts and debating exactly how it should be made and what it should taste like.
These wines, from distant corners of the New World, shed new insight into the earliest American wines, but with a contemporary spin. While it may very well be the first pages in these regions' wine history books, País continues to write new, delicious chapters today.
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