The New Wine Craze: Valle de Guadalupe, Baja, Mexico
Mexico has been making wine about as long as Spanish missionaries planted their flag in the country. Since their missions and churches needed altar wine for mass, vines have been supplying the grapes for that purpose. Until recently, nobody considered Mexico to be a source of fine wine able to compete with the world's better wines.
Baja California's dry, windswept Guadalupe valley sits just northeast of Ensenada, about the same distance to Signal Hill as Paso Robles, and boasts some of the most exciting and innovative wines on the West Coast. The region has a long history of making wine, but it’s only in recent years that the influx of young talent, technological, and viticultural improvements have pushed the quality through the roof here.
Incidentally, the Guadalupe Valley has become a resource of world class cuisine because of its decades-long premium winemaking culture. Watch the delicious documentary Baja Taste on Amazon Prime. It'll give you the itch to get in your car and explore the wine and food of this emerging wine region.