(Wines&Vines) - About 30 of Baja California’s 100-plus wineries recently joined together for the first time to host a group of 30 U.S. wine buyers, sommeliers and members of the media.

The three-day trip was organized by the Mexican Vintner Marketing Alliance created by two importers, Tom Bracamontes of La Competencia Imports in Napa, Calif., and Michelle Martain of La Mision Associates in San Diego, Calif. The area doesn’t yet have a formal winery organization.

Mexico’s wine capital is an hour and a half south of San Diego in the valleys around Ensenada. It produces 90% of that country’s wines. That’s not a lot of wine, however.

Baja wineries produce about 1.5 million cases of wine per year—more than 800,000 from L.A. Cetto, while Pedro Domecq makes 200,000 cases and San Tomás produces 125,000 cases. Only five wineries produce more than 20,000 cases, notes Gustavo Ortega Joaquin, owner of the impressive new winery El Cielo, which has a high-end restaurant and is building a 54-room resort.

The area has little more than 6,000 acres of vines, about the same as in California’s Carneros AVA.

A long history

The native grapes in Baja California weren’t palatable, but early conquistadors found that Spanish grape varieties grew well in many parts of the area that became Mexico. Monks planted the first vines in the town of Santa María de las Parras (Holy Mary of the Grapevines) on the mainland in 1597.

Soon, local wines started replacing Spanish imports, and in a bid to protect Spanish wineries, Charles II of Spain prohibited winemaking in Mexico (except for altar wine) in 1699. The wine tradition declined, and Mexico became a nation that produced primarily beer, tequila and other beverages.

However, some missionaries defied the order. Jesuit priest Juan Ugarte planted the first vines on the Baja California peninsula when he arrived at the Loreto mission in Baja California Sur in 1701. (The states on the 600-mile-long peninsula are Baja California in the north and Baja California Sur in the south).

Monks planted grapes in San Lorenzo near Los Cabos (at the tip of the peninsula) in 1767, and Santo Tomás Mission was founded in Santo Tomás Valley (southeast of Ensenada) by Jesuit priests in 1791.

After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, winemaking grew.

In 1843, Dominican priests began growing grapes at the nearby Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Norte mission in what is now called Valle de Guadalupe, northeast of Ensenada. 

In the 1850s, Mexico seized many of the Catholic Church’s land holdings, and most of the small wineries tended by missionaries were abandoned.

In 1888, the former lands of the Santo Tomás Mission were sold to a private group, which established the first large commercial winery in Baja. It remains in continuous operation as Bodegas Santo Tomás.

In 1903, 100 pacifist Russian Molokans who refused to fight for the Czar moved to the Guadalupe Valley and planted grapevines for Santa Tomás among other crops.

Italian L. Angelo Cetto formed his winery in the eastern Guadalupe Valley in 1928. It grew to become the largest winery in Mexico, producing mostly standard volume wine.

As in Napa Valley, the modern era of the Baja wine business began when outsiders (some wealthy businessmen) started building wineries in more recent times.