SOMETIMES LOCAL HISTORY IS LOOKING US STRAIGHT IN THE FACE AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. SALUD!

By Juan Montoya

People often say that Brownsville is the second most historic city in all Texas second only to San Antonio, and they may be right.

And in terms of local history, sometimes you run into it without even realizing its importance.

That happened this past Friday when I wanted to listen to a grunge band performing in Market Square during First Friday and had to park several blocks away and found a space near the corner of 11th Street and Madison. I walked through the alley between 11th and 12th streets behind the old Masonic Lodge building, the county's first courthouse.

The building across the alley and fronting Madison just happened to be the county's first county jail built in 1882 – later sold to merchants Jose and Juan Fernandez – and has been preserved through the efforts of former mayor Trey Mendez and now owned by local attorney Dennis Sanchez and his wife Marianne.

But it wasn't the building that caught my eye. Tangled among the branches of local – and old – palo blancos and fresnos were the distinctive leaves of a grapevine visible above the buttressed brick perimeter walls.  I had heard about the grapevines before and had seen the gnarled vines but had totally forgotten about them. 

As I reached 12th Street I looked north toward Madison Street and noticed that the old jail's doors facing the street were open. I turned to enter on the off-chance that someone would be there so I could take a picture of the old vines inside the courtyard.

There was. 

It was Dennis' better half Marianne who was weeding the inner patio with a helper, and after a proper introduction, allowed me to take a photo of the vines. I took it and reached out to local historian Gene Fernandez – a descendant of the Fernandez merchants – who told me that the vine was a "sister" cutting from the original vines brought from Lyon, France by the French Catholic nuns. 

Lyon is a short distance from the well-known and highly visited wine region, Beaujolais. The nuns arrived in South Texas to tend to the faithful and start much needed health care and educational systems which are still in place today. 

(Fernandez also said that there was a question on whether the original cuttings were from France or from the Azores where the nuns stopped on their way here.)

As has been noted in past historical articles, aside from the impact of their great works in the community, arguably one of the nuns’ more significant contributions to the region may very well be the grapevines they brought with them in 1853, more than 170 years ago. 

The original vines almost met their demise in 1969 with the demolition of the Convent of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. But aside from the cutting at the old jail that happened so long ago, other cuttings were rescued from the convent grounds and planted in various parts of the city. 

The gnarled vines from the inside appear like tangled old roots that sprout their leaves when they reach sunlight in the canopy of their tree hosts.

"They flower and bear fruit and then dry out," said Mrs. Sanchez. "We have wanted to build a trellis or something that will protect them."

Fernandez said that when a parking lot was going to be built next to the old jail, there was an old sister vine that was going to be destroyed as a result and he convinced the city to use its tree remover and transplanter to save them. He looked for a likely place to save the vines and hit on the idea of planting them by the portals of  the all-girls Catholic school, Villa Maria, in Brownsville which was founded by Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in 1926.

"The sisters there were very glad to take them and they are still growing there," Fernandez said.

Still, others have found that the grapes from the old vines – brought by the Catholic nuns to make wine for use in performing religious sacraments – were resistant to diseases that had wiped out previous efforts to grow grapes here and called them, appropriately, convent grapes. 

Miraculously, Ricardo Rubiano, of Harlingen, owner of Rubiano Vineyard and Winery, 4300 Park Bend, first heard of the convent grapes in 1995 from the late Morris Clint, a Brownsville botanist and horticulturist. 

According to a 2022 article by Javier Salinas in the Edible Rio Grande Valley magazine, Rubiano heard that Morris had a nursery that had amassed a collection of the convent grapevines but was shutting its doors and was interested in selling.

“I went over there and bought the whole lot, over 100 potted vines for under a dollar each,” said Rubiano. “I was fascinated, and I wanted to learn all I could about the history of these convent grapes.”

Rubiano’s quest led him to find a rootstock that would thrive in the South Texas heat and soil.

“I wanted to find the root of the problem, and it was precisely the vine’s roots where I found my answer. I learned about a vine that survived when others didn’t, and the convent grape vines were among this mix of survivors,” he told Salinas.

Rubiano, and other growers and residents, grafted the cuttings on other vines and produce convent wine, a sweet, after-dinner red wine that has earned the acclaim of wine drinkers. That – and the fact that growing grapes in the Valley is not just about making wine – but also about unearthing and shedding light on the story of the convent grapes. These grapes have gained acclaim for their durability and survival, and now they are being harvested here in the Valley.

As we said in the beginning of this post, sometimes history is staring you straight in the face, and we don't even know it.