The growing popularity of Mexican wine

Last Saturday our friends Carlos and Daniela had us over for dinner. After we’d finished Carlos’s sublime lime-cucumber-mint-tequila cocktail, and a bottle of muy suave Mexican Sauvignon Blanc, I started hollering about how difficult it is to find great Mexican wine in the stores here.

“You go to a restaurant and have an amazing bottle, and then you leave and you can never find it again. You can’t find it anywhere!” I said. “You can’t find it anywhere!” (Did I mention that you can’t find it anywhere? God. This is when I should probably have stopped drinking wine, and I did, but then we switched to mescal. And then tequila. Eeek.)

Don’t get me wrong: You can find Mexican wine in Mexico City. It’s just very hard to find the smaller, less-commercialized varieties. Near Reforma where I live, the supermarket sells a handful of big-label brands for around $15 to $35 USD each. La Naval, a high-end liquor store and gourmet deli in Condesa, has a larger selection, but they still tend to concentrate on the Big Mexican Heavies: L.A. Cetto, Domecq, Monte Xanic, Santo Tomás.

This is why I like Grado Único, a small, boutique-style wine store that opened last October in the Zona Rosa. They specialize in Mexican wine, and specifically the harder-to-find stuff. The first time I stopped by in January, I found a bottle of Mariatinto — an intense red blend that Crayton and I had ordered once at Pujol. We’d asked the restaurant sommelier where to buy it and she said we’d have to get in touch with the distributor. But now, here the bottle was, just a few blocks from my house. I bought it immediately.

Since then I’ve gone to Grado Único three or four more times and the owners, Elsa Perez and Mario Ortega, have been pretty spot-on about recommending something I might like. I just about died over the 2007 Adobe Guadalupe Jardín Secreto, a seductive tempranillo blend that we served at a barbecue, with grilled chicken tacos. (Oh man. Fabulous.)

I had a short chat with Perez last weekend, and she said she’s been really grateful for loyal customers. Mexican wine tends to cost more than imported brands, because Mexican winemakers are taxed horrendously by the government — in some cases up to 43 percent, according to this 2008 report in M Semanal, Milenio’s weekly magazine. The taxes are a mix of both IVA and IEPS, and depend on where the wine is produced and how much alcohol it has.

Interestingly, despite all the taxes, the culture of wine-drinking is definitely growing in Mexico. There’s a Mexican magazine, Vinísfera, devoted to national wine culture, and at least one Mexico City organization — Nación de Vinos — dedicated to promoting Mexican wine.

Statistically speaking, consumption of national wine rose in Mexico in 2008 while consumption of imported wine fell, according to numbers from the Asociación Nacional de Vitivinicultores. But Mexicans still aren’t drinking wine on the levels of say, France, or even the United States. One distributor I met at a recent Freixenet de México tasting said the average per capita consumption among Mexicans has jumped over the years from a half-glass to a liter. In 2008, Americans drank nine liters per capita.

Still, Mexican wine, in my experience, can be just as interesting and complex as any imported varietal. And it has a fascinating history — wine-drinking in Mexico can be traced back to the Spanish conquest.

The Spaniards planted the first vineyards in Mexico around the year 1544, says Pilar Meré Palafox, Mexican wine promotions coordinator with the Viniviticultores association. (Casa Madero in Parras, Coahuila, has the distinction of being the oldest winery in the New World.)

The nascent industry didn’t last long — in 1595, concerned about competition with Spanish wines, Spanish King Felipe II ordered the production of Mexican wine ceased. Mexican winemakers didn’t pick it back up again until the 1950s.

It wasn’t until the 1990’s — when cheap Chilean wines flooded the market — did the average middle-class Mexican begin to embrace the idea of drinking wine with dinner. Before that, most people preferred rum or brandy. (This information comes from a short convo I had last year with Alejandro Zárate, the knowledgeable writer and vinophile who runs Nación de Vinos.)

Really, we’re at an exciting point in Mexican wine history. Dozens of new Mexican labels are entering the market each year, and it’s thrilling for consumers like me to get to know these brands and try to figure out what might go best with mole, tacos al pastor, huitlacoche. Now the challenge becomes finding a way to reduce those government hideous taxes, and finding a way to spread the love of Mexican wine within the country and with the rest of the world.

***

For more info on the state of wine-drinking in Mexico, Vinísfera recently posted a great podcast called “El vino es snob?” (It’s in Spanish.)

Julie also posted an item about a cool new wine store in Polanco. Coincidentally, it’s owned by Mr. Zárate, the Mexican vinophile I mentioned above.

The Grado Único information is below.

GRADO ÚNICO
Hamburgo 66, esq. Niza, in the Colonia Juarez (note: they do not have a sign; look for the large glass display window after the bright pink beauty shop)
Tel. 55 33 72 02
Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday
Types of wines stocked: The store specializes in Mexican wine, carrying 46 labels. The rest is a mix of Spanish, French, Argentinean, Chilean, and some South African and Australian.
Price: Bottles range from 120 to more than 1,000 pesos.
The store also hosts tastings occasionally; email them at gradounico@prodigy.net.mx to get on the list.