New Mexico wine

New Mexico has a long history of wine production, within American wine, especially along the Rio Grande, from its capital Santa Fe, the city of Albuquerque with its surrounding metropolitan area, and in valleys like the Mesilla and the Mimbres River valleys. In 1629, Franciscan friar García de Zúñiga and a Capuchín friar named Antonio de Arteaga planted the first wine grapes in Santa Fe de Nuevo México, in what would become the modern Middle Rio Grande Valley AVA. Today, wineries exist in the aforementioned Middle Rio Grande Valley, as well as the Mesilla Valley AVA and the Mimbres Valley AVA. Viticulture took hold since its 1629 introduction, in the middle Rio Grande and the surrounding area, and by the year 1880 grapes were grown on over , and wineries produced over of wine. The editor of the Socorro bulletin predicted in 1880 that "We see in the present attention given to grape culture, an important and growing industry which, in a few years, will assume proportions of no ordinary nature." The wine industry in New Mexico declined in the latter decades of the nineteenth century in part due to flooding of the Río Grande. Prohibition in the United States also forced many wineries to close, while others remained operational providing sacramental wine to primarily Catholic as well as other Christian churches. The modern New Mexico wine industry received significant support in 1978 when a government-sponsored study encouraged winegrowers to grow New Mexican heritage grapes, and to work in collaboration with Italian, Spanish and French wineries to make hybrid grape varieties. New Mexico now has more than 60 wineries producing of wine annually. In 1598 Santa Fe de Nuevo México was founded, after Don Juan de Oñate led Spanish colonists to the upper valleys of the Rio Grande near Española, New Mexico. Santa Fe, New Mexico was established in 1610, and further south near the Mesilla Valley Franciscans followed the colonists to minister Christianity to the Native Americans and Hispanos of New Mexico.