16th–19th century · The Americas, South Africa, Australia
Viticulture spreads to the New World
European colonisation carried vines to the Americas, the Cape, Australia and New Zealand.
What happened
Spanish colonists planted vines in Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina from the sixteenth century, largely to supply sacramental wine. The variety they carried — Listán Prieto — survives as País in Chile, Criolla in Argentina and Mission in California.
Dutch settlers planted at the Cape from the 1650s, and Constantia's sweet wine became internationally celebrated in the eighteenth century.
Vines reached Australia with the First Fleet in 1788 and New Zealand shortly after.
Missionaries carried viticulture up the Californian coast in the eighteenth century, though the modern industry there is a later development.
How firmly this is dated
Documented. Recorded contemporaneously. The date is not in question.
Colonial administrative and ecclesiastical records recording plantings, largely to supply the Mass.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Wines of Chile — Wines of Chile
- Wines of South Africa — WOSA
- Wine Australia — regions, GIs and market information — Wine Australia
Along the timeline
Before · 1395
Philip the Bold bans Gamay from the Côte d’Or
A ducal decree ordered Gamay pulled up in favour of Pinot Noir, shaping Burgundy for six centuries.
After · 1550s–2000s
Chilean wine from conquest to export
Spanish mission vines, then a nineteenth-century French graft, then an export industry built in thirty years.