California's First Woman Vine Grower and Two Horticultural Wonders

I was reading the 1983 publication, Winemaking in California, written by Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun. Always on the look out for interesting factoids related to grapes and wine, I found one on page 11 of the book. The authors tell the story of Doña Marcelina Dominguez who was responsible for planting the great Montecito grape vine and refer to her as California's most famous woman vine grower. The reference to Doña Marcelina Dominguez constituted a mere one paragraph in this book and I was hoping for more information so I did some Google-mining and found a wonderul site:
Santa Barbara's Historic Grapevines - Two of the World's Largest Vines.
This site has the entire story of Doña Marcelina Dominguez as well as some fabulous photos. I wrote to Cathy Berry, who published the information and asked if I could use some of the photos and she graciously gave me her permission and since I wanted more information, also provided me with the name and contact information for the Director of Research at the Santa Barbara Research Museum.
I'm sure that people in California and Santa Barbara are familiar with the Montecito grapevine, but here in Connecticut, I was totally ignorant of this horticultural wonder. The grapevine planted around 1800 by Doña Marcelina Dominguez became known as La Parra Grande. The ignominious fate of La Parra Grande was that it was dug up, cut up, crated and sent off to the 1876 Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia where it was reassembled and put on display.

During its lifetime, dozens of strong posts were situated beneath the long branches of the La Parra Grande to provide support in anticipation of the annual harvest of at least 10 tons of fruit. Amazing!
La Parra Grande was not the only grapevine in the Santa Barbara area to achieve these enormous dimensions. La Vina Grande, was a Mission grape planted around the year 1840, by Joaquina Lugodi Ayala in Carpinteria, south of Santa Barbara. Although, La Vina Grande also is no longer extant, during it's approximately 70 year life span, even in it's advanced age, it bore 6 tons of fruit!

Please visit Cathy Berry's site for more information on Doña Marcelina Dominguez, La Parra Grande and La Vina Grande:
Santa Barbara's Historic Grapevines - Two of the World's Largest Vines
More information:
1. Michael Redmon, Santa Barbara Independent, ‘With July 4th just past, I was wondering how Santa Barbara celebrated the centennial in 1876.’, Thursday, July 10, 2008.
2. Amelia Woodward Truesdell, La Parra Grande, 1900.