Our natural curiosity has taken us down most of the roads in the wine world. It was only a matter of time before we were going to look into the happenings south of the border. Truth be told, we have been open to tasting Mexican wines for a long time. A couple of years ago, we ran across a Cabernet from a producer called Casa Madero, from an area inland from Monterey, that has found a steady home here. But the ‘movin-and-shakin’ is happening in the Guadalupe Valley for all intents and purposes, and we have done our best to see what’s going on, including a personal visit.
The broad view would be that this area isn’t trying to imitate anyone else but develop its own identity with respect to varietals and style. There have been some surprisingly good efforts but the underlying aspect of many somewhat unfathomable prices has largely kept them off our shelves to a large extent. We are now working with a purveyor that seems committed to promoting Mexican wine so we are seeing a wider array of things. To that end, Mexico might have a little bigger presence here moving forward, particularly if we can find unique and stylish wines like the ones we are presenting herein at reasonable fares.
DouMa was created by Eliecer Rodriguez and his wife Carla who met in 2006 at the University of Baja California where they both studied Gastronomy. The name DuoMa, which they created, refers to their collective philosophy that “two hands, working together, can create great things.” Their label could be called a ‘micro-boutique’, but the goal is to produce small lots of expressive, honest wines that demonstrate the signature characteristics of the fruit grown in the region and Baja California’s unique terroir.
If we understand the timeline, the DuoMa Nebbiolo 2019 is the first vintage to come from DuoMa’s newly built facility and everything here is done by hand with fermentation and aging done in stainless steel. We take the varietal heading with a grain of salt. We have tasted a few Mexican Nebbiolos and have our doubts as to the varietal makeup. Either whatever clone they are using was misrepresented as Nebbiolo or the grape has transmutated substantially in these terroirs. Our belief is the former as we have had Nebbiolos grown in a wide range of terroirs (including Greece) and the signature firmness and high toned spice are missing from this bottling.
That is not to say this isn’t delicious. It is. But there is a much richer middle and less tension than one would expect from the stated varietal. The grapes come from two different valleys, San Vicente, south of Ensenada, and Guadalupe. Red plums and black cherry, notes of chocolate and coffee, certainly a more tender mid-palate than is typical of Nebbiolo, and there is a nicely layered finish. Like we said, there isn’t a lot of it (only 580 cases made), but it is very engaging and certainly comfortably priced.
The Solar Fortun winery was started in 2008. Alberto Lopez guides the daily operations of the winery while his U.C. Davis trained son Santiago, handles the winemaking duties. When you consider that Señor Lopez is a well-regarded physicist with a PhD in astrophysics from the U.K. and Santiago is a former member of Mexico’s Olympic Gymnastics Team, they might be one of the region’s most interesting winemaking pairs.
They only use grapes grown in a pristine vineyard tucked away within a hidden valley in Francisco Zarco. The portfolio leans towards Rhone-inspired red wines, including one that was on the wine list at the French Laundry, but was this delightfully quirky blend of 50% Cabernet and 50% Petit Verdot called Solar Fortun Baya Baya 2019 that caught our attention.
From sandy, alluvial soils with decomposed granite, the juice sees six months in new French oak. Baya Baya combines the plump, fruit-forward, fresh character of the Cabernet sauvignon with the potency and verve of Petit Verdot. They are fermented separately and blended before malo. The 2019 vintage saw a mild summer which allowed for a harvest three weeks later than normal and we presume that extended hang time helped these reds harmonize better. Medium weight as Cabernet blends go but with loads of dark red fruit, pepper and mineral personality and more food versatility.
Both of these are very attractive reds but with distinct personalities that give them their own place in the wine world. As far as the wines of the Guadalupe Valley go, there is a lot of promise here and the prices, in the case of these two wines, made perfect sense.