KICK-BUTT SELF-DEFENSE: Lori Hartman Gervasi, author

etter living | wine
xx | inlandlivingmagazine.com | month 09
The Inland region has a long wine-making tradition.
By GINO L. FILIPPI
While California is the
acknowledged Wineland
of America, it may come
as a surprise that the historic
Cucamonga-Guasti area is still home to
some of the state’s oldest vines and no
fewer than five producing wineries that
offer tastings and tours.
here’s the real juice on vintners
offering expanded and distinctive
selections, where novice and expert
enthusiasts alike are sure to discover
favorites. But first, some background:
Cucamonga-Guasti viticulture history
is as complex as the old head-trained
Mission, Grenache, Mourvèdre and
Zinfandel grapevines that dominated the
landscape for more than 150 years.
Much of the area’s vintage prosperity
is owed to Secondo Guasti (1859-1927),
who founded the italian Vineyard Co.
in 1883 and built it into a gigantic wine
enterprise. By 1917, Guasti was
advertising iVC’s holdings — 5,000
contiguous “vine to vine” acres — as the
“largest in the world.”
PhoTos courTesy cITy of rancho cucamonga
steeped in
history
Ontario wine
historian Reno J.
Morra recalls when
the scenery in the
valley was nothing
short of majestic
— reminiscent of
italy’s Piedmont
region that his
parents and other countrymen left
behind. They immigrated to towns
named Cucamonga, etiwanda, Fontana,
Guasti, Ontario and Mira loma, filled
with hope and desire for a better life in a
new wine country, and a desire for their
children to become Americans.
in 1919, Cucamonga-Guasti vines
spanned more than 20,000 acres,
more than in Sonoma and twice as
many as Napa County when Prohibition
was enacted.
Morra recalls a summertime flight in
the 1940s over the vast vineyards in an
Air Force training plane.
“As we flew above, thousands of acres
of lush green vines filled the valley
floor,” he says. “it was the most beautiful
sight my eyes had ever seen. ...