Wine Bill Knott

MEXICO

What do Mexicans drink? Tequila and mezcal, of course. And occasionally pulque, a gloopy, milky, slightly sour drink fermented from agave, to which I became rather partial some years ago when I fell in with a few renegades in a Puebla pulquería.

It was housed in a gloriously shabby farmyard shed: by way of sustenance, corn tortillas, pulled pork and a bowl of smoky red salsa sat on a wobbly table, around which hens were clucking, an old gramophone played scratchy hillbilly music, and I was taught to say quite a few utterly filthy things in Nahuatl, much to the locals’ amusement.

Sadly, beer has steadily supplanted pulque as Mexico’s favourite tipple over the past century, much of it undistinguished and best employed in a michelada, beer pepped up with lime juice and various spices, served in a chilly salt-rimmed glass.

What I had paid little thought to, was that Mexico actually has a wine industry. An hour’s drive south of Tijuana is the Valle de Guadalupe: like most of Baja California, it is a desert, but judicious irrigation means that grapes can flourish here.

As our four-wheel drive negotiated the dirt track leading to Adobe Guadalupe, my first tasting stop, I was sceptical: would this be just a low-rent Napa Valley, 600 miles south, knocking out fruitbomb reds and oaky whites?

No, thank goodness. Many of the wines I tried had real character: clean, sappy whites, and reds, from a huge range of varieties, with surprising elegance and complexity. Modern techniques have allowed serious winemaking to flourish in previously unfavourable climates, and the Valle de Guadalupe is one of them.

It’s not just the wines that are characterful. The valley has attracted winemakers from all over the world: they are an eclectic bunch, and their wines are made in a similarly iconoclastic fashion. Adobe Guadalupe’s owner, Tru Miller, is Dutch (although now a proud Mexican citizen); her winemaker, Daniel Lonnberg, is Chilean; and their vines come from all over the place, including Tempranillo from Spain, Nebbiolo from Italy and a whole host of southern Rhône varieties.

Tru runs a beautiful B&B as well, with superb breakfasts. There is a food truck serving top-notch tapas, and an Italian restaurant in summer. She breeds Azteca horses that guests can ride through the vineyards; and the gardens are adorned with olive trees and organic vegetables.

You can stay at Vena Cava, too, Phil and Eileen Gregory’s estate, a few miles south-west of Adobe Guadalupe. The food truck here dishes out excellent tacos, there is another organic garden, and the estate’s restaurant, Corazón del Valle, is rated one of the best in Latin America.

Phil’s approach to wine is one of endless curiosity: he has fifty or so single barrels of what he describes as ‘experiments’ on the go, each a different combination of the dozens of variables that go into winemaking. It is this spirit of enquiry that any new wine region (and they were all new once) needs to establish the styles of wine – and the techniques necessary to produce them – that will eventually define what a particular terroir does best: the survival of the fittest to drink, if you like.

Although I heartily recommend the Valle de Guadalupe as a splendid, albeit far-flung, location for food- and winelovers to spend a sybaritic holiday, you might wonder where the region’s wines are available a little closer to home. Sadly, while most producers export to the US, only L A Cetto, the biggest guns in the valley, have the economies of scale to ship