October 2025 Wine Club - Mexican Wines

We are in the midst of National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept 15th – Oct 15th), so let’s celebrate with Mexican wines!

I like to include wines to which I feel a connection, and this month’s wines are no different. 

I Love Mexican Wines!  They have been a proponent since my first visit to Mexico in 2006, where I just tried every MX wine I could. At that time, they were not all that accessible – even in Mexico City. The availability of domestic wines seemed to increase with each of my visits, so subsequent trips led to more tasting and an ever-greater appreciation of the breadth and depth of Mexico’s offerings. I found this note saved in my phone, from a 2014 trip: 

Casa Grande Chardonnay: full-bodied. Touches of citrus. Tannin and acid, great structure. Light malo.  Soft grassiness. Reads a bit chenin-y

From then on, I drank as much Mexican wine as I could find. Of course, not all of it was great – but what country can boast that? The wines I did drink proved that Mexico produces some excellent ones. This isn’t a surprise, given the landscape and climate. Baja, for instance, is a bit like coastal California. There are some 12-16 (the exact number depends on who you ask) wine regions in the country, whose varied terroir and environments also mimic those of lauded wine regions and result in a diversity of high-quality wines. 

Though a “young” wine-making region, the country has experienced winemakers who have studied and worked around the world – such as Lulu Martinez, who made this month’s wines. Mexico – like many regions -  has also seen the introduction of foreign winemakers, such as the Bordeaux vintner, Henri Lurton. 

Despite all of this wonderfulness, Mexican wines had been very difficult to get in Pennsylvania. That improved with Tom Bracamontes, of the company La Competencia Imports (@lacomptenciaimports). In Tom, there was finally someone passionate about these wines and getting them to the East Coast. Tom brought winemakers and introduced a myriad of wines. He held dinners and seminars, and everything I learned made me want moremoremore! For a time, it seemed that with all this potential as well as plenty of proof-of-concept, Mexican wine was going to have a moment. But the momentum plateaued, and the moment left. That is a real shame. 

What gives? 

One possible choke point for getting this wine into more people’s hands is the expense. It *is* expensive, and that can be a barrier to entry for many people. But there are some lower-cost Mexican wines in the market. L.A. Cetto, for instance, is priced to match Cupcake or Barefoot. These wines are good and unflawed, and I feel the L.A. Cetto far surpasses those other wine brands in quality. For just a few dollars more per bottle, the same winemaker – Camillo Magoni, the “grandfather” of MX wine - produces the Casa Magoni wines. These are delicious and quite affordable. More to the point, though, is that Mezcal sure has had a moment – and it is able to command some very high prices. I can’t see that cost is the main barrier.

This is really good wine, with great history and great people. It strikes me more that Mexican wine does not fit into many people’s lexicon of fine wine. I suspect there is an unwillingness to attribute sophistication to Mexican wine and winemakers to a degree that would overcome the snobbery that remains so prevalent in wine appreciation. And that is a shame.

We will prove that wrong, one bottle at a time 😊

Our Wines

Perhaps it will take the personality and skill of Lourdes “Lulu” Martinez Ojeda, the winemaker of Casa Jipi wines, that are this month’s featured bottles. 

Mexican-born and raised near Ensenada, Lulu went to Bordeaux at age 18 to study French, but quickly found her calling in wine. There, she completed programs in winemaking and worked on the Grand Cru estate of Henri Lurton in Margaux. After a decade in Bordeaux, she returned to Mexico to help Lurton open a new winery in Baja. She is now the head winemaker of Bruma, does much consulting, and has her Casa Jipi project.

These wines are from Baja, which produces about 70% of all wine from Mexico, and where all the wineries mentioned here (Casa Magoni, L.A. Cetto, Henri Lurton, Bruma) are located. Casa Jipi grapes are from Valle de San Vicente, which is the southern-most of the valleys of Ensenada, and the southern limit of Baja production. Winemaking is low-intervention and farming.

I met Lulu when Tom Bracamontes brought several winemakers to Philly. I was immediately drawn to her friendly, colorful personality and was blown away by her wines. 

Casa Jipi Sauvignon Blanc, Valle de San Vicente 2023

100% Sauvignon Blanc. The wine had just a few hours of skin contact and spent 6 months in tank. Notes from the distributor: Pale straw color with greenish hues. Clean and bright. Elegant and floral nose with hints of acacia honey, tangerine, green melon, and jalapeño. On the palate, fresh attack with medium-high acidity; mid-palate: broad and fresh. Tart, aromatic, with notes of fresh grass and pleasant citrus

Casa Jipi Nebbiolo, Valle de San Vicente 2023

The wine is 100% Nebbiolo, and the juice spent 6 months in stainless steel. Notes from the distributor: Intense, deep violet color with bluish highlights. An explosive nose with notes of blueberry, yoghurt, and smoky hints. Velvety and creamy attack with fresh ink nuances. Mid-palate with juicy tannins.

October Surprise Gift and Upcoming Event

As a thank you to Wine Club members, and in recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we offer each of you a coupon to Sor Ynez restaurant for our Salsa and Sikil Pak appetizer; Sikil Pak is a Mayan pumpkin-seed “hummus”.

Sor Ynez is inspired by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. She lived in Mexico in the 17th century when it was known as New Spain by its Spanish colonizers. Sor Ines, however, was no colonizer. In today’s lingo, Sor Ines would be termed an anti-colonialist feminist (or vice versa). Highly (self) educated, she became a nun as a teenager so she could continue her studies, write and have a bit more freedom than that afforded lay women. She composed music and wrote poems, she wrote about women’s rights, she wrote about freedoms. She recognized the significance and intrinsic value of indigenous language and culture around her. That respect led her to value the indigenous people in Central Mexico and (possibly) to learn their language, Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec.  Sor Ines lived in Mexico City over a century after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and Mayan contact, and colonization of Mexico. The Spaniards worked to destroy nearly all written knowledge about both groups and their pre-conquest history, but she would have made her own observations. She may also have had access to the many codices that Spaniards had compiled of the lives they encountered under their colonization, like that of Bernardino de Sahagún. His Florentine Codex – still known today - has extensive observations that include foods, food vendors, and food uses. Those foods included maize, chiles, nuts, seeds, frogs, ducks, insects, tamales, and much more that is remain part of Mexico’s cultural heritage in the 21st century. One Aztec food that we do not tend to eat is axolotl, which was used in tamales or with maize. Now, the axolotl appears on the 50 peso not the plate. Who is on the 100 peso? Sor Ines, of course! An earlier series had her on the 200 peso note.

Never, though, has the Mexican-native dog, Chihuahua, been on a peso note, which brings us to an event taking place in the garden on October 25th from 12-4: “Wags and Wine”!

We are hosting wine professional Michele Gargiulio and her book: Pairing Paws: Dog Breeds and Their Spirit Wines. We’ll have pet portraits, pairings, a book signing, pet adoptions, and an optional tasting with Michele. Though not on a peso, Michele did include the Chihuahua in her book (the cutie on the left), whose spirit wine she deems to be a bubbly, bright, somewhat volatile prosecco! Bring *your* dog for a fun day, and let’s see what wine Michele sees in your pet’s spirit!