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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | March 2007 
Baja Bottled
 Toby Cecchini - NYTimes
| | One of the vineyards along Route 3. (Yvonne Venegas) |
On a trip to sample mezcal in Oaxaca three years ago I encountered a restaurateur who kept imploring me to try his house wines, produced by a friend in Baja. I managed to stave him off for a week, indulging in Negra Modelos instead, until the last night, when he uncorked two bottles of red and I was made to walk the plank. The water, it turned out, was shockingly fine. After sampling a complex, silky cabernet-merlot and then a jamlike tempranillo-garnacha blend, I had to pick my jaw off the ground. Why weren’t these available, or even known, in the States? He laughed proudly and said: “There’s very little and we drink them all here, and happily. What do we need to send them north for?”
Since the wines weren’t going to come to me, I figured I would head south. After a flight to San Diego, I steeled myself for the ugly clutter of the Southern California freeway leading to the border and the snarl of barely signed roads through Tijuana. A mere hour south of San Diego, however, the commercial roadside jumble vanishes, and the Pacific looms off to your right from a high mountain vista, placidly gorgeous with sunset hues glinting across odd circular forms floating just off the coast, which turn out to be tuna farms. As you turn onto Route 3 (La Ruta del Vino), which runs straight through the 14-mile-long Guadalupe Valley, Mexico’s premier wine region, you exhale as the world changes drastically in your favor. Farmers on horseback lope along roads surfaced with spent grape pulp, while skinny cows nose cactuses.
Protected from Baja’s ferocious aridity by mountain ranges on three sides, which cup the Pacific’s breezes, the valley forms a microclimate perfect for growing wine grapes, along with olive trees and an abundance of other fruit crops. Today there are roughly two dozen wineries in the region, but wine has been produced here since the conquistadors introduced it in the 16th century. In the mid-17th-century, the Spanish crown outlawed Mexican wine in order to protect sales at home. Dominican missionaries later took up the grape, only to lose their vineyards when the War of Reform ended in 1857. Production began again, incredibly enough, with the arrival of the Molokans, a group of religious pacifists who fled czarist Russia for Baja in 1904. Since then, three huge producers, Santo Tómas, Domecq and L.A. Cetto, have dominated the scene, though none of their wines have achieved any particular distinction.
In the early ’90s, however, Hugo d’Acosta, a Bordeaux-trained oenologist from Mexico City who had been working at Santo Tómas, stepped out on his own. Believing that the region was falling short of its potential, he spearheaded the small-production movement, improving quality by targeting specific plots and limiting vine yield to concentrate the fruit. He also employed cold fermentation, which helped to preserve the wine’s more ephemeral aromatics.
The Guadalupe Valley today is often compared to Napa 60 years ago, and if so, d’Acosta would be its Robert Mondavi, and then some. His influence and ubiquity in the region are almost Kurtz-like: his first winery, Casa de Piedra, a small barn constructed from recycled materials by his architect brother, Alejandro, produces the rich, saturated wines that established the benchmark for the region; he founded l’Escuelita, a nonprofit winemaking school in nearby El Porvenir; he recently opened 623, a sleek wine bar/restaurant in the port town of Ensenada; and he is just finishing a much more ambitious winery (again the work of Alejandro) called Paralelo. He also happens to be a consultant, if not the actual winemaker, at most of the area’s best wineries.
Antonio Badan at Rancho Mogor-Badan is another influential vintner. He and his sister Natalia live on the farm their parents, a Swiss-French couple, settled in the 1950s. On Wednesdays, Natalia sets up an impromptu market off of their porch, selling organic produce. The wines, however, are the real draw. The red, a tightly wound cabernet-merlot blend simply called Mogor-Badan, was the most elegant wine I tasted on my trip, with vibrant fruit held by a rock-solid structure. Their white, a pure chasselas, is made from an unusual grape seldom found outside Switzerland. In this incarnation it made for a light, dry wine that was still dense with spice: mustard seed and fennel.
The Badans typify the broad spectrum of community-minded pilgrims and wine-industry colonists who have settled here. Antonio is an oceanographer by trade; Natalia, who has helped to organize protests against large-scale intrusions into the valley, particularly heavy industry and housing subdivisions, stresses the perils of growth. She warns, “We have to keep the paesaje for agriculture, to use the good soil for olive oil, honey and wine, not for people’s vacation houses.”
Two aspects of the landscape may inadvertently help safeguard the Guadalupe Valley’s idyll: the roads and the water. With the exception of Route 3, the valley’s main road, the terrain is rocky, making even a short trip a dusty, rattling journey. As d’Acosta slyly explains: “Good roads, bad tourists. Bad roads, good tourists.” (The maxim seemed to hold, as the only other travelers I met were curious Californian vintners down for a peek.) Water has long been a bugaboo here. The water table that feeds the area is slightly saline. At times of high use, this can be evident in the wines. All of them carry a slight trace of saltiness, and in the best it can ground the fruit nicely. But as d’Acosta says: “Because of the salt, you can’t produce well in bulk here. Only low yields of solid fruit will balance it.”
Backing up his words magnificently are the dense reds that d’Acosta makes for Adobe Guadalupe, a winery and inn run by Tru and Don Miller that serves both functions with equal grace. The place is small and intimate, with an open kitchen and dogs bounding about. The Millers, like Eileen and Phil Gregory, who run the charming La Villa del Valle Inn, are on intimate terms with most of the winemakers and are generous with their knowledge, crucial in an area where there are few actual tasting rooms. Over a dinner of local shellfish soup and lamb in Adobe Guadalupe’s dining room, Tru poured the 2002 Gabriel, a seamless Bordeaux blend with an uncanny nose of mint chocolate. As Don poured their other four reds (all named for archangels), he spoke of how, having reached his desired maximum production of 6,000 cases, he sells everything in Mexico, mainly to restaurants in the capital.
A reliable shortcut to the region’s best wines is to pay a visit to the two restaurants that also serve as the region’s social hubs. Laja, the local culinary temple, has been called the French Laundry of the Guadalupe Valley. And at the hallowed, wine-soaked Thursday-night romp at the bistro Manzanilla in Ensenada, every face in the valley is there, three or four languages are slipped in and out of, and all bring in a bottle or two of something special they’ve made. Armando, the impeccably turned-out bartender, blinks unperturbedly as a conversation between two young winemakers about the time share of a French oak barrel vies with the clamor of other guests trying to balance empty mezcal bottles on their chins.
Though the atmosphere is welcoming, no one here is eager to spread the secret of this nascent scene. With the interest of the corporate wine world looming, the valley is at a crossroads. Still, the region’s rusticity and the winemakers’ proprietary stance may preserve it for a bit longer. José Luis Durand, a producer transplanted from Chile, explains: “This is our own thing. It’s a region where it’s very slow, where you can see the grass growing. We are the ones creating our own history here.”
ESSENTIALS
GETTING THERE
Fly to San Diego and then drive south across the border toward Tecate to reach Route 3, the valley’s main thoroughfare. The trip takes about an hour.
HOTELS
Adobe Guadalupe B&B with a working winery as well as horse stables. Route 3 at Francisco Zarco; 011-52-646-155-2094; www.adobeguadalupe.com; doubles from $168. La Villa del Valle Perched on a hilltop, this stylish six-room inn has sweeping views of the surrounding vineyards, fruit orchards and lavender fields. Kilometer 89, Route 3; 011-52-646-183-9249; www.lavilladelvalle.com; doubles from $175.
WINERIES
Reservations are required to visit most wineries in the valley. Adobe Guadalupe Route 3; 011-52-646-155-2094. Mogor-Badan Kilometer 85.5, Route 3; 011-52-646-177-1484. Paralelo/Casa de Piedra Kilometer 93.5, Route 3; 011-52-646-155-3097; www.vinoscasadepiedra.com. Pijoan Rancho San Marcos Route 3 at El Tigre; 011-52-646-178-3482; open weekends only.
RESTAURANTS
Laja Jair Téllez’s tasty seasonal dishes make this a necessary pilgrimage. Kilometer 83, Route 3; 011-52-646-155-2556; four courses about $48. Manzanilla A low-key bistro specializing in new Mexican cuisine. Riverroll 122, Ensenada; 011-52-646-175-7073; entrees $6 to $24. First growth Clockwise from far left, the chef Jair Téllez of Laja restaurant, a foodie favorite; the pool at La Villa del Valle inn; one of the vineyards along Route 3; at Adobe Guadalupe, oak barrels for aging; a house dog takes in the view. |
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