 In 1556 father Juan Cedrón established the first vineyard in Argentina when cuttings from the Chilean Central Valley were brought to what is now the San Juan and Mendoza wine region, which firmly established viticulture in Argentina.Ampelographers suspect that one of these cuttings brought the ancestor grape of Chile's Pais and California's Mission grape.This grape was the forerunner of the "Criolla Chica" variety that would be the backbone of the Argentine wine industry for the next 300 years.