Mexican Vintners Seek Identity as Sales Rise

laht.com   MEXICO CITY – Sales of Mexican wine are growing despite limited government support and the lack of a denomination of origin, thanks to rising interest in winemaking and unique approaches to the business, such as a winery operating on a Mexico City roof. Guillermo Tame and a group of friends cleared the junk off the roof of a Mexico City building and installed winemaking equipment and built a room to age the product. “Everyone wanted to participate in the project and contribute something,” Tame told Efe. The aspiring vintners visited the Guadalupe Valley, an important winemaking region in the northwestern state of Baja California, and gained an appreciation for the “high quality” of Mexican wine, Tame said, adding that the group also learned that Mexico City’s wine culture “was very poor.” The number of people “with some kind of academic training who want to learn and enjoy other pleasures” is growing in Mexico, vintner Victor Segura said. Segura is one of the partners in Las Nubes, a winery in Baja California that produces a modest 90,000 bottles annually. The winery was founded in 2008 in a bid to produce “wines of a certain level,” Segura said. Mexico must do research to determine which variety of grape can be developed so that a denomination of origin can be attained one day, Segura said. One of the problems facing Mexico’s wine industry is lack of government support and high taxes, Segura said. The main training center for aspiring vintners is the Autonomous University of Baja California. There are 40 slots in each class and the majority of graduates “are making an investment in a vineyard,” the director of the university’s wine program, Laura Alicia Beyliff, said.