As we continue on our tour, we now enter into what we today call the “Model Room”. This room originally served Mission San Miguel as a store room and wine making facility. This huge “open style” wine vat located in this room, is original and dates back to the 1820's.

Enologists (people who study wine and wine-making) are not sure, but they believe that the original Friars of Mission San Miguel made red wine (appropriately from a variety of red grape they brought to California called “Mission”) and traded wine to the other missions in the chain. This means that the Friars established the commercial wine industry in San Luis Obispo County sometime in the early 1800's - a very long history indeed!

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