Three Mexican-American wine merchants tell their stories.

The brewer bit Alejandro "Alex" Castillo Rama very early. His parents are migrant workers from Mexico. When he was nine years old, he got a job in a vineyard in Napa, California. He works with his family and picks grapes from the fields.

Later, when he was a young man in the early 20th century, he worked for one year in two of the best restaurants in the United States, namely Napa Valley and three Michelin-starred French laundries in new york. After returning to Napa, he worked in vineyards, tasting rooms and wine cellars of several wineries. One afternoon in 2008, at a family barbecue, he bought a small batch of grapes, bottled the first bottle of wine and shared it at the dinner table. His uncle Oscar Lamas is the owner of several car body shops in the town. He took a few sips of new wine and agreed to give him money to start a wine business. Only five years later, the llama family wines headed by Alex produced world-class wines. Although Alex and Oscar don't have their own fields to grow grapes, they buy fruit from vineyards and other members of the camel family are hired to pick grapes. Years of dedication and work in the wine industry have proved to be crucial, and they have achieved outstanding success in this industry. "Knowledge is the most important thing," said Alex Liamas. "At any time, you see someone come in, work quickly, with high efficiency, technology and knowledge, and you want to keep them. I think this is indeed the case with alpacas.

He started from the catering industry, from the beginning of commercial operation and hospitality, to the end, how to choose the quality wine that customers like.

Alejandro Castillo Liamas had a deep understanding of the wine industry from the beginning. (Image courtesy of Valencia, Israel. _IsraelValencia。 )。 Each bottle has an iconic logo with scorpion's pincers and bent tail painted on it. This sign is reminiscent of his grandfather Jesus Liamas' visit to San Nicolas de Acu near Lake Chapala. A) The cow brand used by Sun Tzu on the small pasture. "Every alpaca family has scorpions in their bottles," said the alpaca. "This is a subconscious message to commemorate where I came from, so as to better understand where I am going." A baseball cap decorated with the logo of the llama family brewery, together with his grandfather's cow brand, recently joined the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Later this month, these materials will be exhibited in an exhibition called "Deep Roots", which is part of rethinking the "food" exhibition visited by the museum many times. Look at the traditional Mexican men and women, who have provided the backbone of the long-term labor and wine industry, and are now reshaping the industry as professional agricultural consultants, winery owners, vineyard owners, scientists and entrepreneurs.

Every bottle of alpaca wine carries a logo, which is after shaping the brand of cattle used in Mexican family farms (above). (NMAH) Gustavo brambilla came to California in the mid-1950s when he was about 3 years old. His father is a worker named Brasseux Luo. He was a Mexican contract worker who worked in the orchard in Napa in the 1940s and 1950s. "When we came here, the community was small," he recalled a Mexican family with children in middle school in Napa. In the early 1970s, Brambilla began to study food science at the University of California, Davis. Brambilla used an old microscope from Spencer's laboratory, probably from the 1920s. This microscope was given to him by a geology professor. He observed everything from grapes to grass under the lens. His interest in budding science will soon lead to grape cultivation, and his training in laboratory and chemistry will also open the door to wine cultivation. He also made a promise to his mother.

"I'm going to buy a bottle of juice, which my father brought home for me to taste," he said.

"It was the grape juice he squeezed that day. I think this is the sweetest grape juice I have ever drunk. I put the bottle cap back on the bottle and put it in the refrigerator. So after about two weeks, my mother screamed because the door of her refrigerator was blown open by the wind and everything inside was broken. So the bottle exploded in the refrigerator. I told my mother that I don't know what happened here, but I will know, and I will let you know.

Brambilla has many mentors, including Mexican field workers or cellar workers he met through his father (vineyard worker) or through picking. But in the end, he will meet and work for the famous winemaker Mike Grgich, whose California white wine was once famous for surpassing French samples at the 1976 Paris wine tasting. It is this milestone that will push the emerging California wine industry onto the international stage. 1977, Grics hired brambilla to work with him and set up his own winery-Grics Winery. 1980, in Napa, California, Gustavo? Gustavo brambilla used a refractometer to detect the sugar content in fruits. (NMAH)

1980, [Paris tasting] French judges. "I want to make the same judgment again," brambilla said, not the same wine, but different wines from the same brewer. ..... They brought a bottle of 1977 Chardonnay to taste again in Chicago, and the result was still the same. It won the first place again, so I can make a contribution to myself 1977 chardonnay.

I didn't realize it because I was in the middle. Therefore, all of a sudden, all the Spaniards and Mexicans who came from the surrounding vineyards and worked in the fields noticed that this was the only time I could recall my true views on Mexicans and Spaniards in the wine industry, which eventually became more famous. brambilla said:

By 1997, Gustavo had opened his own winery, which was one of the earliest wineries in Napa to provide tasting rooms for young and new customers. There, he will pour wine and display his own wine, creating a new model for the wine industry and making it easier for wine to enter urban areas. Today, Gustavo is a world-renowned wine consultant. He is famous for his entrepreneurial spirit and knowledge of grape cultivation, and has expanded to his vineyard management company. Of course, he can also tell his mother that the refrigerator door was blown away because of the accumulation of gas produced by fermentation, and the grape juice bottle did not have a vent valve. Brombilla recently donated his microscope to the American History Museum.

Gustavo Brambilla, a wine merchant, attributed his passion for science to this Spencer laboratory microscope given by a university professor. (NMAH) Growing up in Jalisco, Mexico, family and tradition are very important to Amelia Taya. She was intoxicated by the generosity of her grandparents' farms and gardens, picking fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs and cooking with a Abouly Tower.

/Kloc-When she was 0/2 years old, she came to Napa with her father Felipe Moran Martinez, who was employed by a vineyard management company to grow grapes for Mondavi winery. As a young woman in high school and university, Amelia took part in the picket and * * * to express the struggle faced by farm workers. Amelia and her father, together with the United farm workers, together with Sergio Chavez, dolores huerta and other activists, organized themselves to improve working conditions and pay wages to the vineyard workers. She has been a spokesperson for farm workers since the 1960s.

She met Pedro Thayer, whose family came from Mexico to work in the booming wine industry in Northern California. They got married on 1980. After going to college in San Diego, Amelia and Pedro returned to Napa and Sonoma, getting closer and closer to their families and realizing their dream of owning some family land. They pooled their resources and bought land in Carneros, Napa Valley, in 1983. Her brother-in-law, Armando Thayer, works in the nearby Du Man Chanton winery and needs more black Pi Nuo wine. Vineyard manager Will Nord offered Cejas an agreement to develop the plants they needed for their first vineyard. Pedro and Amelia Ceja laid the foundation of the brand and launched the brand in 1999 and 200 1. Amelia Sega (pictured above: at Ceja's home facility in Sonoma, California with her niece and winemaker Belen Ceja) likes to cook wine and mix it with traditional Mexican food. (NMAH)

Today, Ceja Vineyard is a family affair. Armando Ceja manages the vineyard and is a winemaker. Armando's daughter is now a fledgling winemaker, and Amelia's daughter and son are also doing this business. Amelia keeps on promoting wine, at the same time, she insists on her commitment to environmental issues and social justice.

But perhaps Amelia's greatest talent comes from the fresh knowledge she learned from Abouly Tower and her appreciation of home cooking. At the wine tasting held at home, she skillfully matched the Mexican food she prepared with the wine in Ceja vineyard. She made short cooking videos for the winery's website and shared her recipes, especially tortillas, the staple food of Mexican families.

The wooden tortilla squeezer is a wedding gift that wine merchant Amelia Ceja received from her aunt "Tia Tona". Ceja recently donated hand tools to the Smithsonian Museum. (NMAH) As a bride, Ceja got a handmade wooden press from her aunt "Tia Tona", which she brought back from Mexico and used at home and in cooking demonstrations. The last time she used the media was at the Smithsonian Institution, where she made tortillas. Cheya cleaned the engraving printing machine with emotion and donated it to the museum. Now, it will be exhibited with other items that tell the story of Mexican food in Mexico and Texas.

The exhibition "Food: Changing the American Table" held at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., will open on October 25th, 65438, featuring new exhibitions such as immigrants and food, the history of American winemaking, the history of diet and dieting, and the emergence of Mexican-American winemakers. The Oral History Initiative of the American Food History Project has collected 12 other stories of mexican american, which will be released to the public soon through the American Historical Archives Center. The Brewer project in Mexico received federal support from the Latin American Initiative Alliance managed by the Smithsonian Center for Latin America.