(LATimes) - What with no rain, the Napa earthquake and a vineyard ban in Malibu, California winemakers need some cheering up.

Here’s some good news: Gov. Jerry Brown has declared September 2014 as California Wine Month. In doing so, he’s encouraging tourists from around the world to come “sample our vintages and enjoy the many other attractions that our several distinct wine regions have to offer.”

The actual proclamation begins with a history of the grape in California, admitting that the first vineyard in Spanish California was actually planted in 1683 at the “short-lived Mision San Bruno in what is now the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.” But by the late 1770s, according to the document, viticulture in Alta California was flourishing. And nearly all grapes grown in California then were a hardy, disease-resistant strain that came to be known as the “mission grape.”

The document goes on to explain that the first commercial vineyard was established in Los Angeles in 1824 by Joseph Chapman, and that the aptly named Frenchman Jean-Louis Vignes was first to introduce French vines in the 1830s. It is thought that Hungarian Count Agoston Haraszthy, founder of Buena Vista Winery, the oldest winery in the state still in production, may have introduced Zinfandel to California in the mid-19th century.

It’s a compact lesson in the history of wine in California disguised as a proclamation, covering subjects such as the first cultivated grapevines in Napa, the Gold Rush, Prohibition and the subsequent decline of the wine industry.