Rancho Temecula: The Mexican Land Grant

The Temecula Valley became part of the Mexican land grant system in eighteen forty four, when the California governor granted approximately twenty six thousand acres to a man named Feliz Valdez. The grant, called Rancho Temecula, covered much of the valley floor and was intended for cattle ranching, the dominant economic activity in Mexican California. The rancho changed hands quickly.

In eighteen forty six, Feliz Valdez sold to Jean-Louis Vignes, a French immigrant who had already established himself as one of California's first commercial winemakers in Los Angeles. The timing was significant: eighteen forty six was the year the United States and Mexico went to war, and by the end of the following year California would be American territory. After the Mexican-American War, the new American legal system required that all Mexican land grant holders prove their claims before a board of commissioners.

The Temecula rancho title was eventually confirmed and patented in eighteen sixty, but ownership had passed through several hands, and the Luiseño inhabitants who had lived on the land throughout the rancho period had no recognized legal claim. The rancho era placed Temecula in the commercial wine story of California far earlier than its modern wine industry suggests. Vignes, who had grown grapes in Los Angeles before acquiring the Temecula property, understood what the valley's combination of sun, breeze, and soil could do.

He was simply ahead of his time by about a hundred and forty years.