Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
Lets Learn a Little History
Wine cultivated, produced and bottled in Mexico
has had an explosion of international recognition
in the past years. Today, judging by the medals
accumulated in numerous international competitions, wine from Mexico is increasingly considered
to be amongst the best of the world, especially
coming from the largest producing region in the
country: The Baja Region, in the state of Baja California Norte, Mexico. This is really not new; Wine
from Mexico has experienced a renascence as
part of the second wave of the explosion of “New
World” wines since the 1970’s to the end of 1980’s.
But there is an important question, how did
Mexico become a wine producer?
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Origins (1524)
Since their arrival in Mexico in the early part of
the sixteenth century, the Spaniards had brought
grapevines with them. They considered wine an
indispensable part of daily life, not only for enjoyment, but also for its nutritional value and health
benefits at the time. When they arrived, wild
Cimarron grapes already existed in Mexico, from
which a juice was extracted and which the Aztecs
mixed with fruits to make a beverage called acachuk; which even now is still made with the original recipe. The Purepechas, Otomies and Tarahumaras, also grew grapes which they respectively
called Serurani, Obxi and Uri and from them they
made fruity beverages with slight fermentation.
There are very descriptive documents regarding the grapes
that the Spaniards found in Mexico, Father Miguel del Barco wrote:
… first, the wild or Cimarron grapes. These are found along streams, close to springs. Their trunks are
thin and tangled among other bushes that support them. Their tendrils, the leaves and the grapes are
very similar on the outside but much smaller in size and production than European vines. The grapes
are small and never get to full maturity, and for that reason they never become swee;, on the contrary,
they remain sour and at most could be used, if gathered in quantity, to make vinegar.
In 1524
…Hernan Cortes ordered
the colonizers to plant one
thousand grapevines for
every one hundred natives
in their service.
HERNAN CORTES
In 1531
…Charles I of Spain
realized that the soil and
climate in many regions
of Mexico were ideal for
cultivators of grapes.
CHARLES 1 OF SPAIN
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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Historical
Writings Confirm
…that as of 1534 vineyards near Mexico City and its
outlying areas were well established and additional
documents confirm grapevines as far as a field as the
western state of Michoacán and north west of the capital;
now known as Baja California.
The search for riches throughout Mexico drove the
colonizers to organize expeditions that almost always
included missionaries’ intent on converting natives. In
some areas of northern Mexico, such as Baja California
and Coahuila, missions were founded to consolidate
religious efforts, which immediately called for the
planting and cultivation of grapevines, for both personal consumption and the celebration of mass. It was
common for at least one member of the expedition to
settle down in the region and, depending on the characteristic of the soil and its natural resources, many of
these settlers began producing wine as part of their
daily culture.
In 1593
…Francisco de Urdiñola founded the first winery in the Parras Valley, which is today the
State of Coahuila. He produced the first American wine intended for commercial sale. In
1595 the Spanish decree of prohibiting the cultivation of vineyards had severely limited
the advance of a national viticulture, but it did not prevent its development.
In 1595
…Less than a Century after the first Spanish vines were planted in America, King Phillip
II issued a law by which he forbade more vines to be planted in Mexico, establishing
that the existing vineyards could continue their existence, in spite of which many of
them were burned to the ground to ensure that they could not produce more wine.
Shortly thereafter …
In 1597
…Lorenzo de Garcia founded the Hacienda de San Lorenzo, which is today known as
Casa Madero. The vineyard continues to function and the original structure of the wine
cellar has been preserved. In an inventory document found and dated 1650, more than
ninety thousand grapevines were officially registered, the equivalent today to over 90
hectares of plantings.
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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The Birth of Wine in Baja California (1697)
Fray Eusebio Khun, An Italian Jesuit priest, Cartographer and Geographer, commonly referred to as
“Padre Kino”, preceded the definitive colonization of California; he formed part of a 1683 expedition
headed by Admiral Isidro Atondo. Even with hard conditions and failures, he founded a series of missions at the end of the Seventeenth Century and throughout the Eighteenth Century that became both
the Origin of a Key to Mexican viticulture, especially in Baja California.
In 1697 the founding father of California’s viticulture is considered to be Father Juan de Ugarte. He was
ordained at the Colegio se San Ildefonso in Mexico City and through his acquaintance with Father Juan
Maria Salvatierra, decided to travel to California where soon became procurator of the missions. On
one of his provisioning trips to Guaymas, he brought back “vitis vinifera” vine shoots, a variety of vine
responsible for producing almost the entirely of the world’s wines. Before the arrival of this variety in
Mexico, there had been some local grapevines, but they did not produce wine
of a caliber satisfactory to the Spanish colonizers. Thanks to the unbeatable
conditions of the soil and climate, these resulted in an optimum situation for
growth of the vines, from Tenochtitlan to Huejotzingo and its surroundings.
Both the clergy and laymen began working together to increase the production, even though it was the missionaries who really made this possible by
expanding the vine growing areas where
they went to evangelize.
This is why the vines
planted by those friars
acquired the name of
“Mission Grapes”, which
continues to be grown in
our country and is the
origin of wines with
excellent quality.
MONUMENT TO PADRE KINO
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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The War of Independence (1810)
At the end of the 18th Century, winemaking was, almost entirely, in the
hands of ecclesiastical power. For this reason, at the beginning of the
19th century, as the unrest of the war of Independence of Mexico was
developing, a group of soldiers was sent to the village of Dolores
Hidalgo, in what today is Guanajuato State, with the order to destroy the
existing vineyards and discourage national winemaking.
They burned all of the vineyards of the
Dolores parish in the presence of father
Miguel Hidalgo, who fifteen days prior had
personally refused to burn them, ignoring
an order of the Royal Audience which obligated him to do so.
BURNING OF THE VINEYARDS
While the Baja California vineyards remained practically intact
during the years that followed the war of Independence, the production of wine in our country became stagnant. The most
remarkable fact was that henceforth it would be in control of the
people, and not the clergy, and this would pass to the national
domain in general. Moreover, it was at that time that great expanse
of the Californian territory became part of the United States.
The new post-independence society was interested only in products brought from abroad, especially from France, emulating Gallic
sophistication, as well as to be seen as part of a high social spectrum. For this reason, demand for Mexican wine soon declined in
our country. While Agustin de Iturbide tried to counteract this
situation by imposing high import taxes on imported wines, this
measure was not sufficient to halt the entry of imported wines into
Mexico, the same happened with President Santa Anna, the following years.
FATHER MIGUEL HIDALGO
Later, President Porfirio Diaz supported an ambitious modernization and industrialization project as
an initiative of James Concannon, an Irishman living in California, who brought more than a million
vines, the vast majority of which planted in the State of Guanajuato. Thus the revival of Mexican
winemaking was attempted but not successful; even the government tried to expand the production
of wine. In 1900, a huge part of the vineyards were destroyed by Phylloxera Plague.
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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Guadalupe Valley
This Valley owes its
name to the mission of
Nuestra Señora de
Guadalupe, which was
the last mission to be
founded in the region
in the year 1834, and is
the one that has the
largest wine development of all valleys. It is
located 30 kilometers north of Ensenada; at a
latitude of 320 meters above the sea level, and its
vineyards extend inland from the coast. The vines
grow in a wide variety of soils due to the topographical diversity that goes from ones in the river
beds, to those of exposed granite due to the erosion
of its hills, to those of red clay at its summits. Its
extreme weather, with little rain, low temperatures
at dawn and at dusk, and with high temperatures
during the day, make for a favorable environment
for the maximum development of the grapes, as
well as the cultivation of great amount of olive
trees. The ripening temperature of the grapes
oscillates between 15 to 35 degrees Celsius. Relative
humidity is almost always higher than 60 percent
and the plantation density of the vine is 3500 cuttings
Guadalupe
Valley
Ojos
Negros
Valley
San Vicente
Valley
per hectare. Guadalupe Valley includes three
main municipal delegations: Ejido El Porvenir,
Francisco Zarco and San Antonio de las Minas.
The latter, is considered as a small valley due its
unique conditions with homogeneous soils that
have good depth and high granite content.
Santo Tomas Valley
Santo
Tomas
Valley
In the lands of
the
Santo
Tomas
de
Aquino
mission, founded
in 1791, Santo
Tomas Valley is
located about
18 km from the
Pacific Ocean. At 45 km south of Ensenada and at
an altitude of 140 meters above sea level, its
major winemaking activity is in the middle of the
basin, where the maturity temperatures of the
grapes vary from 14 to 36 degrees Celsius. The
main characteristic of the valley are its winds
that blow strongly from dawn to dusk.
Ojos Negros Valley
This owes its name to two oval swamps, close to each other akin to two big
black eyes. The swamps disappeared over the years, but not the importance of
this valley, which markets its agricultural products cultivated with irrigation
systems and which included alfalfa, onions, watermelons and other vegetables. Today, farmers they have begun to plant vines, since the area receives
a somewhat greater rainfall, but also this valley is famous for its high quality
cheeses.
San Vicente Valley
This Valley is located 90 km south of Ensenada at an average altitude of 110
meters above the sea level. Having a more random and capricious topography
in comparison to the other winegrowing valleys, it has very different vineyards where the grape maturity temperature varies from a minimum of 10
degrees Celsius. The valley owes its name to San Vicente Ferrer, The Dominican mission that was founded in 1780.
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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Mexican Revolution (1910)
In 1910 the Revolution
started in Mexico. After
Benito Juárez's death
in 1872, Porfirio Diaz
wanted to take over as
Mexico's leader. As
allies, the two men had
fought against the
French in the Battle of
Puebla, but once Juarez rose to power, Diaz tried
to unseat him. Diaz began his reign as president
in 1876, and ruled until May 1911, on this period the
plantation of vineyards was almost fully
abandoned. Until the 1920´s the vineyards
reactivated the planting of grape and wine
production, and there was an effort to
industrialize it as a mass production, but at the
beginning this was not successful: the lack of
knowledge of the techniques and also the lack of
modern equipment. Until 1948, the Mexican
government strongly forbade the import of
luxury goods, among them any kind of alcoholic
beverages, so this measure provided the
definitive incentive for the revival of the
winemaking industry. In this way, and through
the immigration of many people from all over the
world, whether of Russian origin, of the interior of
Mexico, or local from Baja California, the
cultivation of the vines planted in the valleys of
Guadalupe, Ojos Negros, Santo Tomas and San
Vicente (the four Ensenada Valleys that are part of
those lands which had produced so much wine
centuries before), began new life.
In 1948
The National Association of winemakers was created and 15 vintners were
affiliated, in the period of 1950 to 1954, fourteen more vintners were affiliated,
this means a constant growth of the wine industry in Mexico.
CONSEJO
MEXICANO
VITIVINÍCOLA
The situation had changed in recent times, especially since the 70’s: the modernization of the industry, the improvement of the middle class, the commercial
efforts and the higher education of farmers as well, had allowed these advances
and at the same time the customers had more interest on wine culture, which
helped to a tripling of production between 1970 and 1980.
The Baja Wine Valley
In the Baja California Mexico Region, or Ensenada Municipality, there are very special weather conditions that generate really unique microclimates. The mineral richness of its soil,
the sea breezes, the Mediterranean style climate and the high sun exposure are
elements which jointly create and ideal atmosphere for the planting of vines,
their cultivation and the harvesting of excellent grapes that are the source,
year after year, of high quality premium wine. The winemaking region of
Ensenada, Baja California, is located between parallels 32°35 and 32°15 northern latitude and the four wine producing valleys extend perpendicularly
towards the Pacific Ocean. Due to the marine breeze that blows in the region,
the wind moves continuously between the sea temperature and the climate in
the valleys.
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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Today 2011+
Although most consumption of Mexico’s fine
wine industry is local; many vintners are now
concentrated in exporting their wines which
have achieved great international success due to
the high standards of quality of their products. In
an effort to survive globalization, this creates new
wines capable of competing with the best of
Europe, California and Australia; winemakers
have obtained white wines with fresh fruit
aromas and reds with a deep color and intense
flavors and aromas, for which domestic producers have had to introduce technology in their
plants and have professionally and internationally trained their staff and now the evolution of
wines is supervised by highly trained
winemakers.
Guadalupe Valley, Mexico
To Tecate, Mexicali & Tijuana
To San José de la Zorra
38
23
28
20
19
FRANCISCO ZARCO
18
21
22
24
12
37
17
34
16
EL PORVENIR
11
32 33
10
30
15
36
13
14
8
9
29
35
7
5
1
X.
H
wy
.3
SAN
ANTONIO
3
2
ME
To Tijuana
4
31
6
25
Toll road MEX Hwy. 1 to Ensenada
39
26
27
1 Leonard’s Restaurant
2 Vinisterra
3 Vinicola Tres Valles
4 La Hacienda
5 Casa de Piedra
6 Viña de Liceaga
7 La Casa Vieja
8 Viños Pijoan
9 Hotel Plaza Fatima
10 Niñas Tierra Santa
11 Bibayoff
12 Vinicola Emeve
13 Viñas de Garza
14 Vinicola Tres Mujeres
15 Mogor Badan Winery
16 Restaurant Laja
17 Hacienda Guadalupe
18 Viñedos Malagon
19 Baron Balch’e
20 Chateau Camou
21 Monte Xanic
22 Vinicolas Sueños
23 Casa Pedro Domecq
24 Vinos Fuentes
25 Paralelo
26 L.A. Cetto Winery
27 Doña Lupe
28 ECO Spa
29 Hacienda La Lomita
30 Villas Montefiore
31 Martin Del Campo
32 Viñedos Alborada
33 Xecue
34 Vinicola JC Bravo
35 Vinicola Pedrasa
36 Viñedos Zapien
37 Adobe Guadalupe
Vineyards
38 Vinos Tanama
39 Vinicola Tintos del Norte 32
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Wine from Mexico:
The Baja Region
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References
• Bustillo Puente, Esperanza-Lavalle, Gabriela (2009)
Wine Valleys, A Journey Through Wineries and Other Point s of Interest in Baja California, P-35-44.
• Faesler, Carla-Ceron, Rocio, (2003)
The Wines Of Mexico, Roots, Shoots and Fruits. Ed Revimundo
• Bustillo Puente, Esperanza-Lavalle, Gabriela (2009) Wine Valleys, A Journey Through Wineries and Other Points of Interest in
Baja California, P-35-44 Ed. Ambar Diseño
• Ramos-Covarrubias H.M. (2007)
Con punto de acuerdo, por el que se exhorta a los tres poderes de la unión a efecto de que en los encuentros que organicen
con cargo al erario federal se consuman sólo bebidas nacionales, a cargo del diputado Héctor Manuel Ramos Covarrubias,
del grupo parlamentario del pan.
• Valle, Rafael. (1958)
The History of Wine in Mexico. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 9 (3): 146-154.
• Pinney, T. (1989)
A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Home page: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft967nb63q/ (Consultado en Diciembre de 2007).
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www.winesfrombaja.com
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