Malaguerra Winery
About this property
The Malaguerra Winery is a historic winery located in Morgan Hill, California. The two-story winery is the oldest remaining winery structure in Santa Clara County, which stands at the eastern edge of the Valley and the foothills of the Diablo Range. It was constructed in 1869 for ranchero José María Malaguerra. The Malaguerra Winery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 23, 1980. By the late 1850s, Swiss immigrant and Californio ranchero José María Malaguerra began cultivating vineyards in Madrone, Morgan Hill, California, then an independent township just north of Morgan Hill. In 1861, Malaguerra and his wife, Alvina, acquired a 200 acres (81 ha) parcel of Rancho Refugio de la Laguna Seca from Liberata Piatti, the widow of Californio pioneer William Fisher. In a collaborative effort, they cultivated grapevines and tomato plants, tended to hogs. Over the years, the Malaguerras brought up 11 children. In 1869, he founded the Malaguerra Winery, the oldest existing winery in Santa Clara Valley. The Malaguerra Winery is situated at the eastern border of the Santa Clara Valley, with the foothills of the Diablo Range rising just behind it. The original northwest section of the Malaguerra Winery also served as a space for the family to air-cure homemade sausage and salami, suspending the pork casings from the rafters within the building. While other wineries from the same era have gone on to produce nationally renowned wines, the majority of their original winery buildings have been replaced over time. The cultivation of grapes on a commercial scale commenced in this region during the early 1850s, and by 1860, Malaguerra was one of the twenty-six winemakers in the county. The Malaguerra Wine enterprise can be viewed as a representative example of the viticultural development in Santa Clara County. During the mid-1890s, a national economic downturn and this, combined with the "Wine War," a period characterized by excessive grape planting following the resolution of the Phylloxera problem, led to the closure of many local wineries, including the Malaguerra business's demise in 1898. The Malaguerra operation, however, experienced a revival and expansion at the turn of the 20th century under the management of Augustino A. Guglieri. The involvement of Italian immigrants in the wine production industry became a hallmark of Santa Clara County, as exemplified by the Malaguerra Winery. In 1920, the Guglieri family sold the property to John Traverse, who owned and oversaw it until 1950. Subsequently, for nearly fifteen years, the former Malaguerra Wine operation functioned as a chicken farm during the 1960s.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Malaguerra Winery listed on the National Register?
Malaguerra Winery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1980.
What type of historic resource is Malaguerra Winery?
Malaguerra Winery is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Malaguerra Winery?
The period of significance for Malaguerra Winery is recorded as the industrial era.
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