Hello! Welcome to As Drunk by Exotic Wine Travel, a weekly column where we feature interesting wines that we encourage you to seek out. The reviews featured in this series may be written by either one or the both of us. The featured wines can be from obscure or well-known wine regions. We hope that these wine recommendations will keep you gastronomically curious and your palate invigorated!

Durand Viticultura, Icaro 2012

We spent three months tasting in Baja, Mexico during the summer of 2016. Our original plan was to write a guide on the wines of Baja but we’ve been a little slow to materialize the project thus far. During our time in Baja, we tasted many wines that were overripe with too much oak. However, there are also a number of stunning examples being made, like the wines from Durand Viticultura.

The two biggest names in the Baja wine scene are Hugo d’Acosta and Dr. Victor Torres. Hugo is credited for kicking off the wine revolution in Baja by starting a winemaking school for locals. Dr. Torres got his Ph.D. in Bordeaux and has his own following too. There are other talented winemakers in Baja though and we would put José Durand right up there with the best of them.

José is originally from Chile, he’s a trained enologist & viticulturist. He originally came to Baja to make wines at the large Domecq Winery. José eventually moved on and started his own label Durand Viticultura (previously known as Synergi). José is very passionate about vineyard management in addition to winemaking. He feels like the vineyards in Baja are stressed too much and need to be better maintained in order for the region to move forward. He works with low temperatures during fermentation to extract as much aroma as possible.

We spent an evening tasting through his entire portfolio. Durand Viticultura whites have a freshness and liveliness missing in many Mexican whites. The reds are fresher and more elegant than many of the burly wines being made on the peninsula. His top wine is what stopped us in our tracks though.

José with his masterpiece, the Durand Viticultura Icaro – photo courtesy of José Durand.

Find or buy on Wine-Searcher.

The Durand Viticultura, Icaro 2012 is a blend of 39% Nebbiolo, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Petite Sirah, 10% Petit Verdot, and 4% Merlot. This is Jose’s magnum opus wine and here’s what he has to say about it, “Icaro wants to fly with the sun in his eyes. He has a smile that surrounds you in aromas and takes you for a walk in the night forest after the rain. He delights you with a handful of black cherries, finishing with dark chocolate, eternal and silky.”

The Icaro is an absolute beauty of a wine. It was among the top red wines we tasted during our time in Baja. This wine spends 13 months in oak and has a precise nose of spicy red cherry, mocha, plum, spice, earth, tar, black pepper, and leather. The palate is rich and full of texture. It is fruity but with balance and refinement to please many palates. It’s a big wine but never feels too heavy in the mouth. It’s highly structured and enjoyable to drink. 

This is the real deal folks.

4.7/5 (You can find out more about our scoring system on the START HERE page.)

The opinions expressed in this article are unsolicited and have not been paid for in any way by governmental bodies, enterprises, or individuals. We do not sell editorial content as that would destroy the legitimacy of our reviews and the trust between Exotic Wine Travel and its readers. 

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Some of you may be aware of James Suckling’s fondness for Mexican wine and his amicable friendships with the wine producers in Valle de Guadalupe. And so perhaps it is no surprise to some that he would make wine in Mexico.

In 2010, Suckling released a red wine and a white wine under the name “One Wine One World”. The red is a blend of mostly Grenache, with some Carignan, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Cabernet Sauvignon; the grapes came from the Wente Vineyards in California, Roussillon in the south of France, and Valle de Guadalupe in Mexico. The white—a blend of Pinot Grigio, Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Furmint, and Chevalier—is made with grapes from Hungary, Italy, and Slovenia. About 550 cases of the red were produced and 250 cases of the white.

The proceeds go to a London-based interfaith charity: The Maimonides Foundation, whose mission is to promote understanding among Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

Front label of James Suckling’s One Wine One World Vino Tinto. Photo credit: jamessuckling.com

The genesis of this wine occurred in the summer of 2010 during a lunch in Ensenada, Mexico. Together with Canadian writer, director and producer James Orr and Mexican vintner Humberto Falcon, Suckling discussed the idea of making a wine from the grapes of Mexico and the United States to signify what the two countries had in common instead of what was different.

The idea quickly evolved into a series of actions with the help of Mexican wine pioneer Hugo D’Acosta (check out the interview that Amanda Barnes of Around the World in 80 Harvests did with D’Acosta here), who facilitated the process of obtaining the grapes and making wine in Mexico. In fact, the French grapes were acquired from D’Acosta’s own vineyards in Roussillon and the Californian grapes came from the stainless steel vats in his own cellar. The rest of the Mexican grapes came from a group of small wine producers in Valle de Guadalupe.

Suckling wrote on his website:

“Not only was the wine for a good cause, I also wanted to find out if a wine could transcend borders and terroirs and still be a good and interesting bottle. I wanted to understand in the end if the virtues of good quality wines have more in common than not. It was very much like Khalili’s [David Khalili of The Maimonides Foundation] ideas about men and women. We all have so much more in common as human beings than not, regardless of our faith or our ways of life.”

In this video, he explains how the wine is tasting.

Back label of James Suckling’s One Wine One World Vino Tinto.

Tasting Notes: On the nose, this wine bears some resemblance to Alvaro Palacios Camins Del Priorat 2013. The bouquet reveals notes of lambskin leather, forest floor, dried green herbs, sweet tobacco, and dark fruit. Expansive and textured on the palate with ripe fruit characteristics without crossing into being jammy and heavy. I adore the balance of the fruity and savory characteristics. The gentle acidity gives energy to the wine and adds tenacity to the peppery finish. This wine is showing its peak performance; drink now.

Food Pairing Suggestion: One of my favorite restaurants in Ensenada is Da Toni. Toni, the owner and chef, makes a Tuscan-style Tagliata with beef from Sonora, Mexico. The Tagliata is perfectly charred on the outside and pink and juicy inside. There are no fancy herbs and spices, just the classic cracked black pepper and rosemary to go with the fresh meat. It isn’t an intensely flavored dish so the savory-sweet flavors of the wine will work well with the peppery char on the meat. The wine is only lightly tannic but rich enough to work with the fat on the Tagliata ribeye.

Tagliata di Rib Eye, Tuscan style preparation | Sonoran beef Open at 2PM #hungry #steak #italianfood #bajacalifornia #ensenadaisdelicious #ensenadamexico #valledeguadalupe🍷#bajawine

A post shared by da Toni Ensenada (@datoniensenada) on Jun 10, 2017 at 8:45am PDT

You May Also Enjoy

• Mexican Nebbiolo from Baja California
• Mexican Cabernet Sauvignon by Cavas Valmar
• Mexican Red Blend: Valle De Tintos Reserva 2013
• In this video, we take you to our favorite wine shops in Ensenada and highlight a few noteworthy Mexican wines.

Please note that the opinions expressed in this article are unsolicited and have not been paid for in any way by governmental bodies, enterprises, or individuals. We do not sell editorial content as that would destroy the legitimacy of our reviews and the trust between Exotic Wine Travel and its readers. On occasion, we extend the option of purchasing the wines we review or/and the products we spotlight. Some of these product links are set up through affiliate programs, which means Exotic Wine Travel gets referral credits if you choose to purchase these items via the links we provide.

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Hello! Welcome to As Drunk By Exotic Wine Travel, a new weekly column where we feature wines that are worth noting. The reviews featured in this series may be written by either one or the both of us. The featured wines can be from obscure or well-known wine regions. We hope that these wine recommendations will keep you gastronomically curious and your palate invigorated!

Cheers, Charine

Oh Vino de México

Matt and I struggled through our first few days in Mexico. Most of the wines we tasted were jammy, over-extracted, over-oaked, and lacking structure and grip. Consequently, when we spotted a row of Alvaro Palacios Camins del Priorat 2013 at our neighborhood Walmart in the first week of our stay, we bought everything. Yes, the whole row, a whole case.

However, just as I was going to make that Priorat the default dinner’s wine whilst in Mexico, I was acquainted with Cavas Valmar winery. Indeed, I was saved from succumbing to bigotry and the sick-mindedness of drinking Spanish wine in Mexico every day.

A memorable afternoon at Cavas Valmar cellar. We had a complete roll-call; the first- and second- generation winemakers and the grape growers were all at the tasting with us.

Canvas Valmar is a pioneer of Mexico’s modern wine industry. In the book The Oxford Companion to Wine, Jancis Robinson refers to the winery as one of the most important wineries in Mexico. Fernando Martian is the owner and winemaker. Together with his daughter Nicole Martain (also the owner of Valle de Tintos; refer to notes below), the father-and-daughter team is offering a voice to an unsung wine country.

Cavas Valmar, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2011

The grapes for this wine were sourced from Valle de Santo Tomas. Vinified without acidification and aged in French oak barrique for 24 months. Bouquet of fresh red cherry, white pepper, mint, violet, and a hint of green pepper. Juicy on entry, then vibrant in the middle, with a fine-grained texture to the flavors of red fruit, clove, and sweet tobacco. Impressive length and lift. This Cabernet Sauvignon is on the lean side but it is not hard, as it gets sufficient balance and intensity of fruit and tertiary notes. It reminds me of a medium-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon from the Mediterranean. Highly drinkable now but will continue to evolve nicely across the next five years.

There’s no reason to not taco about wine in Mexico. There’s no reason to wine about taco every day too.

Food pairing: Red meat, grilled fish with cream pasta, or taco.
Retail Price: 500 Peso/USD 25. Available in Mexico and USA.

Wine, Age, and More

During our visit, we had the opportunity to taste more than 10 different wines from the Cavas Valmar’s portfolio, including the Cavas Valmar Cabernet Sauvignon in several vintages. Besides the 2011 vintage, the 1997 bottle also stood out to us with its alluring bouquet of leather, cordyceps, chicken concentrate, and lively penetration of fruit. The year of 1997 was touted as the best year for Cabernet Sauvignon in the wine region of Baja California. We also tasted a 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon from Chateau Camou, which was made under the guidance of Michel Rolland. Both examples of 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon delivered weight and punch and are ranked amongst our top wines of Mexico.

Notes: 

• Our initial negative impression of Mexican wine was but a knee-jerk response. During our three-month stay in the country, we tasted hundreds of wines and discovered many gems and producers that are worth seeking out wherever you are in the world. We will continue to share more about them with you.
• In 2016, Nicole Martain started a new winery called Valle de Tintos with her husband Alvaro Romero. It’s another winery in Mexico that we enjoy drinking from.

The opinions expressed in this article are not associated with any sponsors or business promotions.

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Welcome to As Drunk By Exotic Wine Travel, a new weekly column where we feature wines that are worth noting. The wine reviews featured in this series can be written by either one or the both of us. The featured wines can be from obscure or more well-known wine regions. Sit back, grab a glass, and discover new and exciting wines with us!

Valle de Tintos, Reserva 2013

First of all, I want to apologize for our lack of written content on Mexican wines. We spent a good three months in Baja, California tasting the wines of the region. Our guide to the wines of this dynamic region will be released in the near future. The wines of Baja definitely deserve your attention and this was the first great wine we tasted from the area.

This was created by a lovely couple Alvaro Romero and Nicole Martain. Nicole’s father Fernando Martain is a legend on the local wine scene. He was one of the first private producers in Baja and is crafting great Cabernet Sauvignon under his label Cavas Valmar, but that is a story for another day. Nicole studied winemaking in Napa Valley as well as in Argentina before returning to Baja. After a trip to Italy, she told her husband Alvaro that they should make a Super Tuscan-inspired wine together. Thus, the label Valle de Tintos was born.

Alvaro reached out to us on Facebook a few weeks after we arrived in Mexico. When Charine told me about visiting this brand new Mexican winery, I shivered a little bit. The first few examples that we tasted in Mexico were less than inspiring. Needless to say, the wines from Valle de Tintos completely shocked us. The entire portfolio was well-made and delicious.

This is their top wine and a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Sangiovese, and 20% Cabernet Franc. It is very similar to the blend of the famous Super Tuscan Solaia from Antinori. The Valle de Tintos Reserva is aged for 22 months in French and American oak barrels before bottling. The fruit is sourced from several valleys including the highly regarded San Vincente Valley, south of the city of Ensenada.

Charine and I have had three bottles of this wine and they all showed extremely well. The nose has vanilla, lead, rose, chocolate, mocha, and green olives. The palate has the additions of sweet tobacco and menthol. The Sangiovese seems to lift the wine up with acidity. This is fine to drink now but will do much better with bottle aging. 

Alvaro told me that he will be submitting this wine for judging at the next Decanter competition. We will be rooting for him!

4.2/5   (You can find out more about our scoring system on the START HERE page.)

Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this article are personal opinions and are not associated with any sponsors or business promotions.

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We are huge fans of Piemonte wines, especially after our two-week trip through the region in 2015. Our experiences in Barolo and Barbaresco were beyond sensory pleasure and inspired us to pursue the meanings and stories in wine. As we arrived in Baja California, we naturally felt a huge draw to taste its elusive Mexican Nebbiolo immediately. After three months of winery visits and tasting from the source, we finally found ourselves comfortable with not only Mexican Nebbiolo but Mexican wine in general. How does Mexican wine taste like? How can Nebbiolo thrive in a desert condition? The answers took some digging but were very rewarding.

Mexican Nebbiolo Vs Italian Nebbiolo

For many years, the signature wine from Mexico was the Baja Peninsula-made L.A. Cetto Private Reserve Nebbiolo, which won praises beyond its shore. It seems odd that a variety that is most notably known to come from the hilly, cool-climate, and slow-growing-season area of northwest Italy can flourish in the arid desert of Baja California. While no DNA analysis has been performed on Mexican Nebbiolo yet, there are some answers in Karen MacNeil’s Wine Bible:

“Leading oenologists here believe that Mexican Nebbiolo is probably not a single variety, but several varieties that were brought from Italy after the Second World War by the Italian winemaker Esteban Ferro, then at Santo Tomás winery. Ferro’s cuttings were apparently stalled at the port of Veracruz for a long period of time, and the identification tags, wet and disintegrating, were eventually lost. But the cuttings were planted and collectively called Nebbiolo.”

Several winemakers confirmed this story with us and a few clarified that Mexican Nebbiolo is made up of two parts Piemontese Nebbiolo and one part Piedirosso. While this may or may not be true, the wines made from Mexican Nebbiolo is nonetheless delicious and share similar flavors with the Piemontese clones. One consistent observation we have made is: the Mexican Nebbiolo makes darker, less tannic wine than its Italian counterpart. By dint of the climate difference, the Mexican Nebbiolo wine also tends to have riper, darker fruit flavor and bigger, plusher body than its prematurely released Italian friends. There are also a few producers here with small plantings of the original Italian Nebbiolo and are yielding some commendable results. Here are our favorite examples of both types of Nebbiolo.

Torres Alegre y Familia Cru Garage Nebbiolo 2013

Dr. Victor Torres graduated from the University of Bordeaux. His PhD thesis is known to have redefined the way Bordeaux makes wine in the 1980s. Based on his thesis, Bordeaux reinvented the way white wine should be fermented in order to extract maximum flavors, and this practice still stands as part of the regulation in Bordeaux today. In 1986, a Mexican winery owner had a vision of reviving the Mexican wine culture. He went to the University of Bordeaux seeking for the best winemaker to hire and was told by the school that the best graduate (Dr Victor Torres) was in fact in his own backyard. After working as the chief winemaker at several other wineries for over a decade, Dr Torres finally established his own wine label.

All of Dr Torres’ wines are fantastic, especially the Cru Garage premium line. They are wines that we’d have no qualms about presenting to serious wine drinkers. This is the best Mexican Nebbiolo we’ve found in Baja. The flavor profile is dominated by black cherry, mint, blueberry, rubber, and peppercorn. This wine has a precise structure and faultless balance with addictive, sweet tannins. For a 2013 vintage, it is surprisingly ready for consumption now if you like a fruit-forward, fresh Nebbiolo similar to the ones from Langhe DOC.

Casa Magoni Nebbiolo 2011

The 2011 vintage is made from 100% Italian Nebbiolo grapes and blew our socks off. We have tasted several barrel samples of experimental wines made from Italian Nebbiolo at other wineries and this is the finest example we have found in Baja so far. The nose is reminiscent of an overripe, meatier Barolo from La Morra. The flavors include chocolate, rose petal, blue and red fruits, smoke, licorice, clay, and forest floor. The tannins are sweet and firm. Overall, it’s a wine of complexity, intensity, and a sense of place. The 2013 vintage is a blend of 60% Mexican Nebbiolo and 40% Italian Nebbiolo and is featured on Vivino’s 2017 Wine Style Awards. While we enjoy the 2013 vintage, it lacks prowess and precision compared to the 2011 vintage.

Camillo Magoni (pictured below) is from Lombardy, Italy. He studied agronomy and winemaking in Alba and then moved to Baja California in the mid-1960s, a timely period that saw him rising to become a pioneer in modern winemaking in Valle de Guadalupe, presently the most famous wine regions in Mexico. After heading up the winemaking function at the Mexican giant producer L.A. Cetto for many years, he established his own commercial label at the ripe age of 73. Mr Magoni is still vibrant, jovial, and full of life. He is also a man of vision and inquisitiveness. These traits are clearly exhibited in his experimental vineyard with plantings of over 120 different varieties that originated from Portugal to Greece.

———————–

“These (120 grape varieties in the nursery) are not for me. They are for the new generations of winemakers here. We don’t know when climate change will hit us and when it does, when some varieties can’t thrive anymore, the winemakers can come to my vineyard and pick what they need.” – Camillo Magoni

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Durand Viticultura Icaro 2012

This is a blend of 39% Mexican Nebbiolo, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Petite Sirah, 10% Petit Verdot, and 4% Merlot. We love the winemaker Jose Durand, particularly for his philosophy on wine, and will share more about him in another article. Generally, Jose’s wines possess the traits of refinement, gentleness, and precision.

This is Jose’s magnum opus and an absolute beauty of a wine. This wine spent 13 months in oak and 7 months in the bottle before release. It has a beautiful, precise aroma of mocha, red cherry, plum, spice, tar, black pepper, and leather. The palate is dominated by tangy forest berry pie, black pepper, and leather characteristics. This is an elegant, fruit-forward wine with incredible mouthfeel and structure that can get people hooked for many days and bottles.

You May Also Enjoy:
Cavas Valmar Cabernet Sauvignon 2011
Valle De Tintos Reserva 2013
You can check out our episode on Mexican Nebbiolo below.

Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this article are personal opinions and are not associated with any sponsors or business promotions.

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