By Ed Avis
Ivy Stark, executive chef of Dos Caminos Mexican Restaurant in New York, appreciates quality. In addition to practicing her craft at some of the finest Mexican restaurants in the U.S., including Border Grill and Zocalo, she was the beverage director and sommelier at Brasserie 8 ½ in New York City.
So when Stark decided to add wines from Mexico to the menu at Dos Caminos, she knew what she was doing.
“I took a trip to Baja and visited the Mexican wine country and tasted a lot of very good wines,” she says. “The wines have developed so much in recent years that it made sense to bring them to New York show the quality to our guests here.”
Growing Reputation
Wines from Mexico have been overshadowed by those from better known wine-producing regions, but that’s changing.
“The wines of Mexico have always been high quality – they have earned many medals in international competitions,” says J. Alfredo Jimenez, vice president of international relations for Los Angeles International Wines, which imports several lines of Mexican wine. “But the focus of U.S. consumers has been on other regions of the world. Fortunately, Mexican wines are slowly becoming better known. People in the United States who try them are fascinated by their quality.”
The quality of wines is determined by many factors, including climate and wine-making technology. Today Mexican winemakers have both of those factors in their favor.
About 90 percent of Mexican wine comes from the ocean-moderated climate of northern Baja California, where the grapes develop complex flavors growing on the hillsides and valleys.
“It’s a micro climate that is very similar to Sonoma,” says Glenn Albright, co-founder of International Spirits and Wines in New York, which imports LA Cetto wine. “LA Cetto is in the Valley de Guadalupe, which sits in the foothills of the mountains. It’s typical of great wine-growing areas.”
Most of the remaining wine is produced in the state of Coahuila in north central Mexico, where the Mexican wine industry was born in the late 1500s.
“One of the most attractive regions in Mexico is the Valley de Parras in Coahuila,” Jimenez says. “One winery there, Don Leo, is located at an altitude of 2,100 meters above sea level and surrounded by mountains, which gives us more hours of cold during the time of ripening, creating a greater aromatic concentration and a better definition of varietal flavors.”
Applying modern wine-making technology to those remarkable grapes has resulted in wines of consistent quality and character.
Happy Guests
Stark says the wines from Mexico have been a hit at Dos Caminos.
“We encourage our servers to sell them as they are representative of the country and pair so well with the cuisine,” she says. “They have been very successful, and the staff loves selling them because they know they are offering the guests a unique experience that they are going to enjoy. And the guests are pleasantly surprised that they can experience a great bottle of wine from Mexico with their Mexican food.”
This article is the first in a series on Mexican wines. It was brought to you by the Mexican Wine Coalition, www.mexicanwinecoalition.com, and Los Angeles International Wines, www.lainternationalwines.com, importer of Mexican wines from Bodegas de Santo Tomas, Barón Balché, and Viñedos Don Leo.