Alder finds some great wine in Marin County, but all too few vineyards.
The pioneers of California viticulture were the Mexican padres who, beginning in the late 1700s, planted grapes as they established missions up the coast of what was then known as Baja California. Their methodical march northwards in California and their dedication to planting vineyards for sacramental wine means that long before wine grapes were even imagined as crops in Napa or Sonoma, wine was most likely being made in Marin County at the Mission San Rafael Arcángel soon after it was established in 1817.
Today, a small...