FOOD & WINE
Embracing the Past Vin de California and the lost history of Pasadena winemaking
uring the days of Spanish colonization in the early 1800s, Pasadena’s wine industry was born. Wineries were built in the wake of the Spanish missions that dotted the Los Angeles basin, making the region California’s original wine country. After the state’s prohibition of alcohol in 1919, many of these wineries disappeared. As time passed and development swept across the county, houses and highways slowly paved over the old wine country, erasing the viticultural history of Los Angeles. Winemakers Adam and Kate Vourvoulis opened Vin de California and Good Luck Wine Shop on Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena with the dream to revive the city’s buried wine industry through a return to the production of natural wine. “Natural wine is a return to the way winemaking was done for millennia before the mass-production consumerism of wine,” Kate explains. Natural wine is made with the mantra that nothing is added and nothing is taken away. There are no added enzymes, acid or yeast, and there is no filtration system used in the winemaking process. The wine ferments naturally after the grapes are crushed, with sugar coming from the juice of the grape and yeast coming from its skin. “When you have really good raw product to start, a beautiful fruit that’s farmed really well, you don’t need to do a lot to it or manipulate it to taste a certain way,” Kate says. “And natural wine really starts with the farming. The people who are working the vineyards are conscious of their environmental impact and farming organically, with some even going further above and beyond that.” The origins of natural winemaking date back to the Stone Age, when farmers began cultivating wild grapevines and fermenting the crushed fruit in clay pots over 8,000 years ago. Today, Adam and Kate are hoping to bring the legacy of low-technology winemaking back to Pasadena. “Our winery is in the location that it’s in solely because of the history of winemaking that was in Pasadena over 100 years ago,” Adam says. Though prohibition erased much of LA’s wine country, there were pockets of land within the city of Pasadena that were still zoned for winemaking. “I grew up here in Pasadena, and I didn’t know this history at all,” Kate laughs. “We very much function as an urban winery. We buy our grapes from friends across central California, but we’re able to do full production of winemaking here because of this long history.” Both born and raised in Los Angeles, Adam and Kate met outside of a wine bar in 2014. After the birth of their son Cy, they moved back continued on page 10
Adam and Kate Vourvoulis are the founders of Vin de California and Good Luck Wine Shop. They are dedicated to restoring Pasadena’s rich wine culture.
Photo by Chris Mortenson
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By Luke Netzley
8 | ARROYO | 02.22
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1/31/22 3:13 PM
