FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THOMAS BROS. WINERY RECEIVED A CRUSHING BLOW

Perhaps the most sobering script I have shared over the past 18 years of this column is about the flooding of the Thomas Bros. Winery. Forty-five years ago yesterday, California’s Oldest Winery at Vineyard/Carnelian Avenue and Foothill Boulevard was crushed.

Employees and members of my family, including my parents and older brother Joseph ‘J.P.,’ were inside the on the morning of Jan. 25, 1969.

“We were in back cleaning. It sounded like a running stream in the front and I went to look and then all hell broke loose,” said J.P. “The back doors and wall caved in and water was running through the tasting room. My mom was being pushed out the front by a wine barrel. Rocks and mud were coming through while my Uncle Bill Nix grabbed the cash registers and my grandfather reached for the vermouth bottle. My dad helped my mom and we left for safety. My uncle and dad returned to save a family living on the property.”

Our family purchased the property in 1967 from brothers Clifford and Webb Thomas. Identified as CA Historic Landmark No. 490, the adobe winery serves as a reminder of a lost era when the Cucamonga Valley was the heart of California winemaking.

Winery manager Reno Morra of Alta Loma recalls the damage.

“After several days of torrential rain and rapid snow melt, the check dams in the foothills failed. Cucamonga Creek could not contain the large water flow which broke its sandy wall at San Bernardino Road and found the winery and Kapu-Kai bowling alley first. The sand and debris inside was over four feet high. We found broken wine barrels and bottles spread far south of the winery.”

So much of the winery’s history reads like great fiction, but it is history. The cellars were filled with antiques, equipment and historic

artifacts. The grounds were museum and park together. Beautiful orange and groves, tall sycamore, walnut and avocado trees, rose gardens, craftsman houses, vineyard and the old Tapia Homestead east of the winery building and distillery tower.

“The day after, with the help from many friends and family, we started putting the winery back together. We opened in the parking lot, but it was months before it was safe inside,” said Morra. “It was a group of dedicated people that worked day and night to restore the winery.”