Spain’s efforts to become a world power in the 15th and 16th centuries, for which the circumnavigators of the globe and Columbus’ discovery of America had paved the way, brought European vines to the American continent for the first time. The conquistador Hernan Cortes brought seedlings to Mexico during the early years of the colonization, and in the middle of the 16th century the first vineyards were established in what is now Chile. South America was cultivating vinifera long before North America and present day California. On occasion, the resulting wines were even exported back to Europe before viticulture in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Brazil fell into a kind of long hibernation, from which it has only awoken in the last couple of decades.