EZQUIEL MONTES, Mexico — In the land of tequila and beer, some are raising a glass to a wine renaissance.
Mexico is the Western Hemisphere's oldest wine producer, yet its wines are little known in this country or anywhere else. And they've long had a reputation of not being very good -- in the past, people who drank Mexican wines had to settle for mass-produced table varieties that were easier on the wallet than on the palate.
But accomplished winemakers who have worked to restore respectability to the Mexican industry since the late 1980s are getting results. Their efforts have made everyday Mexican wines more drinkable, and their premium products have won international awards and surprised food critics and are beginning to catch the eyes of importers in Europe and the United States.
"I wasn't sure they'd even be good, but it was ... a revelation. That's the word," Marguerite Thomas, travel editor for the Wine News of Coral Gables, Fla., said after touring Baja California's wine country.
Although there is debate in the wine community about whether international awards really measure quality, Mexican wines have taken home more than 110 since 1990.
"People who think it's bad should try it," said Julio Cano, a 57-year-old radio engineer who was sipping a glass of cabernet sauvignon, made by Baja California's L.A. Cetto winery, at a Mexico City bar. "It's not like it was before."
Conquistadors first planted grapes for wine in Mexico in the 16th century, but the Spanish government later banned production for all but the Roman Catholic Church. Mexican independence did little to jump-start a stagnant industry, and in more recent decades government regulations that favored wine importers limited the country to low-quality grapes for brandy or jug wine.
A rebirth of "New World" wines that made international stars of previous lightweight producers like Chile and New Zealand helped Mexico snap out of its slump, prompting serious, Mexican-born, internationally trained vintners to work in Baja starting in the mid-1980s. One of the big changes they undertook was in the kinds of grapes that were grown -- run-of-the-mill varieties were replaced with cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petite sirah, chardonnay and chenin blanc, among others.
Lately, attempts to revive ancestral varieties of tempranillo, which was brought to Mexico from Spain, as well as the success of cabernet franc have excited international red wine enthusiasts. Mexican Viogner and Sauvignon Blanc wines have turned the heads of those who prefer whites.
