THURSTQUEEN WORLD TOUR: MEXICO
Viva, Mexico.
Mexico produces some great f***ing wine. And I’m tired of talking about it. I’m honestly so tired of the looks of consternation in people’s faces when I mention Mexican wine. I can’t even BEGIN to tell you.
Yet I will support this region until I DIE.
Until I am freaking blue in the face, gasping for my last breath, I will support Mexican wine and tell people how amazing it is.
That is how much I believe in this region and the magical things they are doing in this place.
Yes, Mexico makes wine.
Yes it’s amazing.
Yes deceased Napa legends like André Tchelistcheff were dipping their fingers in this region. Yes currently living négociant gods (yeah I know wtf I’m talking about) like Henri Lurton are snapping up parcels of vineyards left and right.
And yes, Anthony Bourdain - mad respect, RIP - referred to this region as, “a little Tuscany.”
Anthony Bourdain -
A Real One
So there. If Anthony Bourdain says it’s legit — than IT IS.
All these dudes know/knew something special is going on here.
So let me pose this question:
Why does everybody believe that only regions like France, Napa and Italy are capable of making extraordinary wines?
Sure, they’re amazing - no doubt - and they have amazing wines to be celebrated, but that does not mean that we should ignore other regions like Mexico!
EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry. I just had to. Rant done.
Okay, I’ve collected myself now.
Let’s start talking about Mexico, the regions, the terroir and other bits. There’s not a lot on this region, so I’ve sort of had to do my own due diligence - my first ever portfolio in the industry was a book of Mexican wines - and work from there.
Mexican Wine:
A HISTORY LESSON
Mexico as a wine region is the oldest wine region in North America. That’s right, for all you folks who love your Napa wines and think Napa was the OG North American wine outpost — think again.
Mexico was making wines since the 16th Century. Grapes were transported up from Central and South America by Spanish Monks during the Spanish conquest of 1521. The Monks who transported these vines of vitis vinifera grapes (the species was probably Mission) settled in the Valle de Guadalupe and began to make wine.
They were making these wines in cowhides. And the wine was good, damn good in fact. So damn good that Spain actually got super annoyed - Mexico was a colony of Spain after all - and basically dealt a very heavy and restrictive blows to Mexico’s Wine and Brandy Production.
In the 1900s, that nasty little bugger Phylloxera reared its ugly head again which dealt a double blow to Mexico’s baby wine industry.
Phylloxera?!?!? AGAIN?!?!?!
Fast forward to the modern era. In the 1980s, there was a lot of economic turmoil in Mexico. Mexico ended up entering the GATT Trade agreement, which caused a lot of the “meh” wineries in Mexico to fold. Instead, there was a new focus on quality.
In Mexico you’ll find a lot of boutique wineries and not that many wineries for heavy production — baring a few like LA Cetto. That’s what’s so cool about this region, if you like boutique wine regions, Mexico will be your jam.
LET’S TALK GRAPES
For Mexican wines, you can expect to taste a lot of blends. It wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary to taste a Red wine made from Nebbiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache. Or a white wine made up of Chenin Blanc, Columbard and Sauvignon Blanc.
Mexico has some amazing Italian varietals. I love the Nebbiolo and Barbera from this particular region.
In terms of white wines, they do great Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.
I’ve also found some really cool examples of the Mission Grape. The Mission Grape comes in Blanco and Tinto varieties (White and Red.) A lot of people think wines made from Mission are super boring - but I don’t think so!
Some of them are full of white flowers, lychee, and beautiful tropical fruits with a gorgeous racing acidity.
A great example of the White Mission Grape being used - and a wine I got very attached to. The Blanca México from Bodegas de Santo Tomas.
WHAT ABOUT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS/REGULATIONS
Mexico doesn’t really have the geographical AOCs, DOs, IGTs, and DOCs like some of the other countries have. Because of that, there’s a lot more room for creativity and winemakers can blend Italian varietals with Spanish and French ones. Don’t be surprised if you see a Grenache and Barbera blend out here.
Rhône and Italian varietals shacking up together? Oh my!
It’s actually really freaking cool if you think about it.
There are certain areas in Mexico that produce the majority of its wine. Feel free to take a look at the map below:
from mexicomap360.com
The biggest wine region in Mexico is in Baja California. It also happens to be the region I am the most familiar with because a winery in my portfolio, Bodegas de Santo Tomas, was from there.
It’s called the Valle de Guadalupe.
If you take a trip down to Mexico and take the 1 all the way to Ensenada, you take a left on what is known as the, “Ruta Del Vino.”
The Valle is composed of many different valleys. You have the Valle de Guadalupe, Valle de Santo Tomas, San Antonio de Las Minas, Ojos Negros, San Vicente, La Grulla, Tanamá, and San Valentín.
The soil here is freaking crazy! I remember driving into the Valle with my very first ever boss in the Wine Trade. I was a young naiive baby broker, who knew nothing of the world of wine. But I was so taken by the reddish soil! It was like nothing I had ever seen before.
I used way too many filters back in the day, but you get my drift.
There are over 200 boutique wineries here - so if small producers doing really cool stuff are your thing — you gotta go!
I represented another phenomenal winery that produced some of the best Zin I’ve ever had that came out the Valle called Baron Balché. Their Zin sold like hotcakes in sunny Los Angeles and is well worth the try. If you ever find your way out in the Valle, be sure to pop on by and visit their beautiful outdoor restaurant.
There are some other great producers like Monte Xanic, Tres Mujeres, and Pavo Real. These were all producers we wanted to represent, but were being distributed elsewhere. Be sure to check them out if you manage to visit this amazing region!
In terms of terroir, the soil is an old sea bed. This lends a unique minerality to the wines, and some salinity. You can see a lot of iron rich clay and sandy soils - that’s what shocked me when I first visited. There are extreme temperature fluctuations from day to night - if you wanna be all smart you can say, “diurnal shift.” This puts a great amount of stress on the grapes, which they need to thrive.
Because the Valle is shaped like a bowl, when things cool down, the fog drifts off the ocean (it’s only a few miles away from the coastal town of Ensenada) and the fog irrigates the grapes at night.
SHADE ALERT
I’m about to throw some serious shade at some of the haters of this region. Especially the critics that barely spent any time there and chose to write the Valle de Guadalupe off entirely - and write snarky articles about it.
Some well known “critics” of the region cough cough haters cough cough will say that because the soil is from an old sea bed, the wines are too salty or spicy.
My response?
There are a lot of wines with salinity.
Have you ever heard of Chianti? What about Muscadet from the Loire Valley? How about Assyrtiko?
If you’re gonna hate on this region for the salinity in the wines — chill. That’s just the terroir. Some wines are a bit salty and have, “saline,” qualities. I simply don’t buy writing off an entire region because there’s one quality in the wines you don’t like. To me, that reeks of a snobby, westernized palate.
💅🏽💅🏽💅🏽💅🏽💅🏽
I’m just calling a spade a spade.
Anywhooooooo…. now that I’ve retracted my claws, let’s get to talking about some of the other fantastic regions of Mexico.
Coahuila
This was another fabulous wine producing area in Mexico that I was fortunate enough to sell. The oldest vineyard in the Americas is from here, Casa Madero, opened in 1597.
The big area in Coahuila that produces wines is known as the Parras Valley or Valle de Parras. The altitude is a crazy 7,200 feet above sea level and one of the vineyards I used to represent - Don Leo is found up here. They are one of the vineyards with the highest altitude plantings in the entire world.
They produce some killer Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon. (That’s right, for you folks who think I don’t dig the CS, I dig me some Don Leo Cab)
Don’t just take my word for it — Don Leo Cabernet Sauvignon apparently won, “Best Cabernet Sauvignon In The World,” at the International Cabernet Competition in France in 2020.
If you can get your hands on a bottle - I recommend doing so.
Those are the two regions I have the most experience with. I’ve done some research and compiled it on the other regions below. As an introduction to Mexican Wines, I recommend going to the Valle De Guadalupe first - because it is the biggest, produces the most wine, and is the closest to sunny little California.
Sonora
Like the Valle De Guadalupe in Baja, Sonora is also the furthest north, respectively. Not a lot of wine is produced in this area - I haven’t found that many. It’s mostly Brandy. A lot of the grapes are grown in Hermosillo or Caborca.
Zakatekas, Aguascalientes, Querétaro
These are the biggest wine destinations out of Central Mexico. The soil is mostly clay, which retains the water here. Because it’s so close to Mexico City, you can find some fine wines over here.
A lot of these regions have really high altitude as well. Aguascalientes, for example, is more than 2,000 meters above sea level.
You can expect to find a lot of plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Shiraz, and Sauvignon Blanc up here. There are also some incredible Italian varietals up here like Nebbiolo and Sangiovese.
Now, let’s discuss the…
PICK OF THE WEEK - BICHI FLAMA ROJA RED WINE - $27.38 @ Stanley’s Wet Goods
My parents live in this house in San Diego, and in the back there’s this canyon. I always remember the smell of it. It was a mixture of sagebrush and dust. There was a lot of iron in the soil, and it had this very specific, attractive, woody sort of smell.
To get more specific - it smelled like something from a wood-fire stove at a really good restaurant that specializes in smoked meats. Picture a place with a crackling fire, roasting some delicious lamb and fennel sausage. That’s what I get off the nose of Bichi’s Red Wine.
I’ve said before that Mexico is an extremely special Wine Region to me. The first portfolio I ever worked with was wines exclusively from this creative and interesting region. The winemakers here aren’t just winemakers — they’re artists.
If other regions in Europe are considered classical music, Mexico as a wine region is EDM. It’s the future.
Anyway, Bichi was one of those producers I always wish I had in my portfolio. It was, “the one that got away.” This Tecate based producer was also one of the wines that blew up among the Natty Wine community - becoming a cult classic in sunny Los Angeles.
It seemed like all the coolest, hippest, dopest, trendiest restaurants in the likes of Abbot Kinney or the East Side had Bichi as a by-the-glass wine on their list. Repping Bichi earned you mad respect among the Somm community.
The first time I was introduced to Bichi, it was an orange wine. In all honesty, I’m not sure if they still make it - I can’t find it. It was the geekiest extended skin contact Semillon and I about tripped over my own face and died on the spot.
The Somm who gave me the bottle was super suave and sophisticated and ran probably one of the best programs in LA. He told me to try it with Thai food.
I did and I died again.
Anyway, I could wax poetically and pinot-speak about Bichi all day. In short - I have mad respect for Bichi. Even my partner, who is very particular about his wines and extremely sensitive to sulphates loves this producer. He loves that smoky, meaty scent that wafts off the glass.
Dipping into a glass of this is like tasting the most deliciously tart ripe cranberries. If you’ve ever cooked with Achiote seeds — you get a load of them when you taste this beautiful wine.
