Bodegas Icaro has developed an oenological model where the wine becomes an aromatic sculpture that tries to capture time - a moment of beauty in the life of the vineyard.
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Editor’s Note: Patrick Neri is the owner of Beso Imports, a major importer of quality wine from Mexico. Neri is also a scholar on that topic, and is writing a series of articles called Estate Focus, which examine important Mexican wineries in depth. He has given el Restaurante permission to reprint this article about Bodegas Icaro. Click here to read other articles about Mexican wine.
By Patrick Neri
Those somewhat familiar with the story of wine in Mexico already know that it dates back to the beginning of wine on this continent when, in 1521, Spanish colonist and missionaries began planting vines in lockstep with their expansion across the land we now call Mexico. Yet, as in all stories with a long and complex history, there are certain figures whose impact has been disproportionate to rest of the long cast of characters whose individual lives make up the entire tale. Winemaker Jose Luis Durand of Bodegas Icaro is one such individual in the story of the evolution of Mexican wine.
Born in Chile, Jose Luis Durand's life reads like a poem from Neruda or a novel by Lamartine, where the twists and turns (having required the navigation of the highest grounds to the lowest) resulted in the development of a character already revolutionary by nature. Having landed the job of winemaker, (to his surprise) in the 1980s at Chateau Domecq in Valle de Guadalupe, Jose was responsible for purchasing all of the fruit required to run this mammoth operation, (at the time Chateau Domecq was one of the largest wineries in Mexico and is still one of the largest distilling companies in the world) . While not a bright moment in his past from a creative standpoint, this job served the purpose of putting Jose in contact with all of the grape farmers of the region and permitted him to become intimately familiar with the diversity inherent in the vineyards throughout the valley.
With luck, Jose stumbled upon a farmer who's grapes he was going to try to buy for less because they lacked a depth of pigment vintners typically prized at the time (still true today). Jose's plan of talking the farmer down in price was utterly derailed when he witnessed the depth of character of the grapes in every sense other than pigment. This encounter, however brief, shattered the assumptions of the winemaking model Jose had learned when getting his degree and sent him on a path towards uncharted territory.
The first step was to orient towards making a wine of truly exceptional quality, something which no one in the region was attempting to do at that point. Having found what he considered to be absolutely exceptional fruit, he vinified several barrels separately and stashed them away under the mountain of Chateau Domecq's production. When the wine was ready to show, he presented them to the owners of the company and was dismayed to find that, despite the extraordinary quality of the wine, they had no interest in the project. Faced with the prospect of leaving what would have been a life of financial stability and material prosperity for one of complete financial uncertainty and possible existential ruin, he made the pivotal decision to leave Chateau Domecq and start his own brand - a decision that tilted the axis of Mexican wine in the decades to come and gave birth to Bodegas Icaro.
At the heart of this project was an assumption that no one had ever taken seriously before: that the region of Valle de Guadalupe had a terroir that was interesting enough to merit truly precision farming and no-expense-spared winemaking techniques (such as one would apply in other haloed regions in the world of wine such as Burgundy, or Barolo). As it turns out this radical assumption was only the beginning.
Having dedicated himself to the highest possible expression of place, Jose came to question all of the wine winemaking and farming techniques that the world in general takes to be foundational. Questioning of why and how each step was done and pushing the limits in all possible directions to find the best possible expression became an obsession. Almost immediately, Jose drew inspiration from the Greek myth of Icarus, an iconic character who embodies the notion of pushing all limits without regard for risks, even concern for self-preservation in order to find excellence, elegance, and beauty. As his path began to mirror that of the principles in the Greek legend he named his first solo project Icaro and forged ahead through the years championing the idea that the terroir of Mexico was capable of making wines with distinction and individuality which should be known throughout the world.
In 2020 Jose's winemaking approach had reached a level of philosophical and applicational maturity such that he decided it was time to make a new line that showcased the implementation of all he had learned. The Uber-premium very limited production line of 6 wines dubbed "Hypervinos" has just been released.
Over the years that passed, his drive to disassemble the process of making wine to find better ways of achieving the highest expression of a place only increased with time. Now, after 20 years of completely reworking all of the assumed components of the enological model, he has arrived at a new and comprehensive model he calls, "Aromatic Enology" wherein the principle decisions in farming, harvest, and vinification are framed around expression of aromas in the grapes rather than sugar levels, development of tannins, or levels of PH that convention models take as the vulgate. The difference may sound subtle but the impact is astounding.
In the 2020 vintage, as the world was in the grips of global disarray, Jose was finally in the position to apply this concept with precision and did so by creating a whole new line of wines he called "Hypervinos". We are very excited to announce they have just been released and Beso Imports has secured their sole US representation. While there is no parallel to these wines anywhere in Mexico or anywhere else on the planet, we are lucky enough to get a handful of them for the website. Their product pages have just been posted to the site as of today as "pre-order". The wines will be arriving sometime next week, so you can secure them now and they will ship on the 26th of December.
With less just 175 cases of each of these 5 wines made in each vintage, they represent the pinnacle of expression of Valle de Guadalupe from select rows of vineyard sites with vines dating back to the 1930's (pre WWII). While the US is only getting a handful of cases of each wine from the 2020 vintage, Beso Imports able to get 3 cases of each for the site. While you can expect these wines to be around for many vintages to come, the 2020s mark the beginning.
Expect to find a grace and elegance in these wines that is on a whole new level (El Perfumista for example is a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from 85 year old vines that somehow reads like a top flight Burgundy and clocks in at a mere 12% alcohol), and naturally an aromatic profile that carves out new olfactory dimensions. It's also worth mentioning that while accessible young, these wines will all benefit from age and can be cellared for 10 to 20 years or more (please refer to drink dates for each wine for specific recommendations). All 5 of the new Hypervinos wines (El Perfmuista, El Malabarista, Orpheo, Hekate, Hyperion and Marella Reserva Chardonnay are available for pre-order in addition to the new arrivals of the 2020 vintages of Icaro and Ala Rota in both 750 AND Magnum format.
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