MEXICO: THE NEW WINERIES ARE SUCCESSFUL TOO

In the winter of 2015 the Bor & Párlat quarterly wine and gastronomy magazine published an analysis of 4 pages written by Dr. Jozsef Kosárka – retired ambassador of Hungary – about the Mexican wine industry.

The article revises the history of the Mexican wineries from the beginning of the wine consumption until nowadays. However the 90% of the alcohol consumption comes from the acquisition of beer in Mexico, tequila is perhaps one of the first associations that foreigners have when they think of Mexico. The total quantity of wine in the market is growing every year and due to wine associations it can reach 925 thousand hectoliter a year.

The author highlights Baja California, Ojos Negros, Parras/Coahuila and Ezequiel Montes/Querétaro as the best wine-producing regions of Mexico where owing to the growing popularity of wines encouraged the internal mobility and increased the number of vineyards in Mexico.

According to Dr. Jozsef Kosárka’s assumption, the recent production of the Mexican wineries reaches 200 thousand hectoliters a year, while the quantity of imported wine is approximately 550 thousand hectoliters every year. He outlines that compared to the total population of the country this amount cannot be considered high, but if we have a look at the number of wine consumers (approx. 3 million people) in Mexico, it is relatively significant.

In spite of putting the beginning of the wine consumption history in Mexico to 1593, he emphasizes that the true progress of the wine industry was brought about around the millennium, since the real development started in the middle of the nineties due to the success of the Mexican wineries.

Thanks to its high-quality wines Dr. Kosárka underscores the winery of Monte Xanic and Durand Viticultura, whose wines were renowned by the famous French wine guide, the Gilbert & Gaillard. The author mentions the L.A. Cetto – the winery with the largest volume of production in Mexico – that in addition to producing 90,000 hectoliters of a wide variety of wine (32 tipes) every year, exports its products to 17 countries with 14 European ones among others, and won almost 400 awards in prestigious international wine competitions.

In conclusion, Dr. József Kosárka calls the attention to the Festival of Mexican Wine (Festival del Vino Mexicano - FEVINO) that was held the first weekend of November, 2015 in Mexico City and the last day of the same month in Guadalajara. He notes that in the last years several wineries from less-known wine-producing regions of Mexico participated in this event and even if in respect of the quantity of their production they are not that competitive, regarding the quality the industry has to count on them.