Guadalupe, Baja California

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Valle de Guadalupe (Valley of Guadalupe) is a village located in the municipio of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico 14 miles (20 km) north of the town of Ensenada at 32°4′N, 116°35′W.

[edit] History

The community was founded in 1834 by Dominican missionary Félix Caballero as Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Norte, making it the last mission established in the Californias. Caballero had to abandon the mission in 1840, under attacks from the local Indians.

One of the most important activities in the mission was wine production but in 1857, when the Mexican government stripped the Catholic Church of its land holdings the small wineries formerly tended to by missionaries were eventually abandoned. In 1888 the government sold the former lands of the nearby Santo Tomás Mission to a private group, which established the first large-scale winery in Mexico.

In 1904, the region received an influx of Russian Molokan immigrants, a religious group which opposed war and fled Russia so its men would not be drafted by the Czarist army. In Mexico they found freedom of creed and acquired about 100 acres (0.4 km²) of land to harvesting grapes for wine.

[edit] Tourism

Since the 1990s the association of winemakers of Baja California holds the Grape Harvest Fiestas in the Valley of Guadalupe and the town of Ensenada every year in August. The celebration includes wine tasting sessions, concerts and soirées, and samplings of regional cuisine.