My brother called one night asking what I knew about Mexican wine. It was a short conversation, because I really didn’t know anything. He had just returned from a trip to Baja and had the opportunity to sample wines from a couple of wineries in the Guadalupe Valley. Now, this guy is a die hard fan of Napa reds, but he told me that the wines he sampled were on par with wines he liked from Napa. Obviously, I was intrigued.
In the United States there is almost an immediate dismissal of anything that comes out of Mexico (except street food), I’ve watched multiple chefs scoff of the very idea of Mexican wine while simultaneously acknowledging they’ve never tried any. Couple that with the fact it’s already difficult to find wines from any country that doesn’t have an established wine reputation and you’ll understand why it took me a while to get my hands on wine from Mexico.
After a couple of months, I was searching shelves at Binny’s when a clerk approached me to see if I needed help. Usually, I dismiss them because I’m never really sure what I want, but I decided to ask if they carried Mexican wine. We walked through the store searching all the shelves I had already looked through until we came to the “Domestic Reds” shelf where we found it just sitting on the bottom in the middle of miscellaneous California wines. To my delight, it was from the same winery my brother had visited.
Monte Xanic is in the wine region of Baja California. According to their website, the area has a microclimate similar to the Mediterranean, specifically Southeast France. Wine was introduced to the to the region by Christian missionaries in the late 18th or early 19th century.
The wine I picked up was a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend that has seen 12 months of aging in French oak. For all the skeptics let me say, this might be the best red blend I tried in 2018. I would easily set this against anything I’ve tried from Napa or Bordeaux. It had a nice balance of fruit and spice flavors, tannin that were present, but not overly aggressive. For the price, this wine may be unbeatable and it’s always a good day when persistence and curiosity are rewarded.
So, I texted my brother and here was his response.
