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Baja Wines Travel to Ixtapa

The food was glorious at Food & Wine magazine's festival in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo. But the wines were glorious too. And the tasting opportunities were better than you would get even in Baja's Guadalupe Valley, where most of the wines poured at the festival were produced.

Unless you go to Ensenada for Vendimia, the annual Baja wine festival in August, there's little likelihood you would taste what was assembled for the Ixtapa festival, and perhaps not even then.

For example, J.C. Bravo poured his small production Carignan at tastings on the sand at Zihuatanejo's Playa La Ropa (at top) and at the Marina Ixtapa.

To taste this wine usually requires an appointment to meet Bravo at his bodega in the Ejido El Porvenir in the Guadalupe Valley.

Shimul presented its Italian varietals, the first time I have seen these wines, although I have bought Shimul olive oil in Ensenada.

Andrés Blanco, enologist and director of Laja restaurant in the Guadalupe Valley, poured Ulloa, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Petite Sirah.

After the festival, Blanco took his wines to Mexico City, where Laja founder and executive chef Jair Téllez spends much of his time at his new restaurant, Merotoro.  Open a little more than a year, Merotoro features Baja cuisine adapted to an urban setting. It's been named one of the city's top three restaurants.

The exception to the Baja presence was Viñedos Santa Elena from Aguascalientes. This winery's line includes a Malbec; a blend of 50% Malbec with Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Carignan-Syrah blend.

Santa Elena started in 2006-2007 with a small vineyard. The Malbec is grown from a new, high density planting, but 30 years or so ago, it was planted in neighboring Zacatecas, so it has a long history in Mexico.  

Years ago, I went to both those states and spoke with an agricultural expert who predicted the area would  become a leader in wine grape production. Judging from Santa Elena, it looks like this is happening. 

But, guess what, even in Aguascalientes, there's a Baja connection. A partner in this winery is Hugo d'Acosta of Casa de Piedra, who consults for innumerable Baja wineries and is the area's celebrity winemaker.

Making Malbec is something D'Acosta has wanted to do since studying winemaking in France, and he travels to Aguascalientes every couple of months.

D'Acosta poured his own wines too, including the 2008 Septiembre 23, a Carignan named for the date the grapes were picked.

The Baja wine boom has made land so expensive that the proprietors of Mariatinto found it cheaper to buy a vineyard in France and so will make wines from that vineyard as well as Baja wines from purchased grapes. The Mariatinto wine I tasted was a smooth blend of Grenache, Syrah, Tempranillo and a little Cabernet Sauvignon.  

The Firmamento label offers just one wine, a handsome red blend that made me return to taste it again. It's composed of Grenache, Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Tempranillo grown on a small vineyard in the Guadalupe Valley. And it's well worth the price, 640 pesos, or about $57.

Others taking part in the festival included Joaquín Prieto of Tres Valles, pouring among other wines a blend of Tempranillo, Sangiovese and Ruby Cabernet called Kuwal, which means red in an indigenous Baja tongue. 

Mogor Badan's Bordeaux blend stood out. Pau Pijoan poured his wines on a sunset cruise aboard the catamaran Picante (at right) along with D'Acosta and Ricardo Álvarez of Santa Elena.

When the catamaran docked, a crocodile swam up, perhaps hoping that someone might be tipsy enough to topple overboard, but that didn't happen.

Still more festival participants were Paralelo (the same winemaker as Firmamento), Vena, Vinisterra, Viñas de Garza and Monte Xanic.

But the last taste went to Bodegas Santo Tomás, which provided all the wines for the final festival event. This took place outdoors at the Palma Real Golf Course, where visitors from chilly parts of the United States reveled in the warmth of the evening.

Along with wine and food tastings, the event included a costume show from Guerrero state, lively Mexican music and, as the grand finale, a massive burst of fireworks.  

A Wine to Remember

It was bottle number 408 of only 1,210  produced.

The wine was a Malbec. Not from Argentina, where Malbec is as common as tap water. And not from California, where Malbec is gaining recognition as a varietal rather than used primarily as a blending grape.

This wine came from Baja California's Guadalupe Valley.  It was the 2002 Malbec made by Hans Backhoff of Monte Xanic.

On the label, Backhoff says the 2002 harvest yielded only four barrels, of such notable flavor that the winery felt it a duty to share it with clients and friends. 

I was lucky enough to receive a bottle when I visited Monte Xanic some years ago. But I didn't open it until the other day. And I was amazed. Deeply colored, the wine was fresh, young and full of spirit. It was an admirable Malbec, not purple, soft and jammy like many Argentine Malbecs.

According to Monte Xanic's website, the 2005 Malbec is available for purchase now. 

Like the earlier bottle, it is a limited edition wine, and the description is the same as that on my bottle--concentrated black fruit and delicate notes of licorice and freshly ground roasted coffee, "complex flavor, voluptuous in the mouth, elegant and memorable."

It's a wine I would look for on another trip to Baja. After all, one must keep good memories alive.

 

Javier Plascencia's Tijuana Food

You would have to spend a week in Tijuana to eat in all of Javier Plascencia's restaurants. And you might want to spend another week just to eat in them again. 

I've only managed two so far, the classic Villa Saverios, where Tijuana's well-heeled eat high style Baja-Mediterranean food  (above).  And the new Erizo Cebicheria, a casual seafood bistro. Erizo means sea urchin, which is sometimes on hand, but not when I was there.

The restaurants do have a couple of things in common. Both serve Plascencias' mosaic-like octopus carpaccio (Erizo's version is at right. The greens in the center are slivered nopales) and his thin-crusted pizza that's like a cheese course and dessert combined. It's topped with Baja's Real del Castillo cheese, then quince paste, fig syrup, pomegranate seeds and thyme sprigs.

And each has a signature cocktail--a tamarind martini at Saverios, Peru's pisco sour at Erizo, where you can have it plain or dolled up with flavors such as mango, passion fruit and pomegranate.

With your tamarind martini at Villa Saverios, you could have a trio of tiny tostadas (right), one topped with spider crab, another with geoduck clam and a third with a combination of Sonora dried beef and octopus machaca.  

Standouts at Saverios this last trip included a juicy cassserole of lamb shank cooked with wine, onions and little dumplings of corn masa that are called chochoyones. 

Crisp fresh radish slices on top added the contrast needed for such a rich dish.

If the only chile relleno you know is a green chile stuffed with cheese and coated with batter, you would be amazed at Saverios' pasilla chile stuffed with beef cheek sweetened with fig granules, surrounded by heirloom beans and topped with arugula.

The duck taco at Saverios is just as inventive. The wrap is a thin slice of jicama, not a tortilla. A spoonful of green habanero salsa lies underneath, crossed by a red line of jamaica salsa. Jamaica flowers are scattered over the top.

Plascencia does an interesting risotto based on his grandmother's recipe, switching from rice to farro and inorporating crisp suckling pig, sliced morels, heirloom beans and, in the center, shredded nopales.

He honors Tijuana tradition with two classic Caesar salads, the original from the Hotel Caesar and another from Victor's, which some insist is the best.

In a side by side comparison, Victor's seemed a little lighter and more vinegary. But the tableside presentation made them both winners.

Villa Saverios is upscale and dressy. Erizo is a nice place to spend a lazy afternoon. It's on a pleasant street, Avenida Sonora, where the Plascencia family restaurants Caffe Saverios and La Tia are also located.

The seafood menu is extensive. The 10 ceviches include one modeled on what Plascencia tasted in Peru. True to Peruvian style, it is dressed up with red onion, chunks of yam and corn, only not the giant corn used in Peru. Perhaps that's not available in Tijuana.

A three-clam ceviche combines geoduck, chocolate and pismo clams. A green shrimp ceviche (right) is intensely colored with tomatillos, cilantro, green onions, avocado and green chiles.

One called petroleo, which includes a variety of seafood,  apparently gets its name from the addition of squid ink.

Erizo does some clever innovations, like birria made with fish instead of meat and swordfish cochinita modeled on Yucatan's achiote-seasoned cochinita pibil (pit-steamed suckling pig).

Toritos are deep fried batter-coated guero (yellow) chiles stuffed with shrimp and crab. Aguachile combines two types of scallops with bright fresh seasonings sparked with lime juice and serrano chile.

And there's a dramatic salt-crusted whole corvina  (right) that is stuffed with herbs and lemon slices and carved at the table. It's accompanied by a garlicky yellow salsa de pescado packed with flavor from ginger, citrus butter, white wine and Peruvian aji amarillo (yellow chile).

The inventive approach to fresh seafood makes Erizo a destination place. But so do its "Tardes de Pisco Sour," a daily afternoon special when the drink price is reduced. The good thing is that afternoons at Erizo continue from 4 to 9 p.m.

Villa Saverios, Blvd. Sanchez Taboada, corner Escuadron 201 in the Zona Rio, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico. Tel: (from USA)  01152 (664) 686-6502

Erizo Cebicheria, Avenida Sonora 3808-11, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico. Tel:  01152 (664) 686-2895.

Ensenada's Cowboy Winemaker

J.C. Bravo isn't really a cowboy. He's a high school teacher in the town of El Sauzal, near Ensenada. 

But he has a vineyard too, and he works it with the gusto of a guy at home on the range. His chief wine, a gutsy, fruity Carignan, is just what you'd want for a barbecue at the ranch.

Carignan is usually a blending grape. That's how they use it in southern France, where it thrives. But Bravo doesn't fuss around. He makes a pure, 100% Carignan, and wine lovers seek him out to get it.

Bravo is located in the Ejido El Porvenir near the town of Francisco Zarco in the Guadalupe Valley. That's in the heart of  Ensenada wine country.

Still under construction, his cava is lined with adobe brick made by his brother. If Bravo knows you, he might bring in bread and cheeses from the region to taste with the wine.

And if you're really interested, he'll go with you to the vineyard, a 20-hectare plot planted with fruit trees as well as grape vines. What you notice right off is how far apart the vines are, not like most vineyards where they cluster together. Wide spacing is better. The roots don't bump each other, he says.

And you don't see an irrigation system, because there isn't one. The vines are watered naturally by rainfall and the moisture that drifts in with breezes from the coast. If that's not enough, a well on the property supplies water.

And there's no need to fumigate. Winds keep the vineyard clear of rot.

Born in the Guadalupe Valley, Bravo sold grapes to other wineries until the demand fell off, then took up wine making himself. His first release was in 2001. Production is small. Carignan has grown to 750 cases a year, and Bravo says he won't do more than 1,200. "Poquito pero bueno" (not much but good), he says.

The current release is the 2007. The 2008 has been in bottle for five months, and the 2009 is in barrels. Bravo, who says he doesn't like the taste of wood, put it in used American oak

He also makes a small amount of Palomino, a white wine with nuances of sherry.  And he's just started to produce olive oil.

That's a lot to handle while working full time. But Bravo is going to retire from teaching in a year and a half. And he's as excited as a kid counting the days until the end of school. No long lazy summer vacation, though. He'll work all the harder at what he really loves, grape growing and wine making.

JC Bravo Vinos, Emiliano Zapato 680, Ejido El Porvenir, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California Norte, Mexico. Tel: (646) 155-2068.

Where Saturday Night's Alive

What a dinner--15 courses, three bottles of wine and a glass of mezcal--in what has to be the best place to spend Saturday night in Ensenada.

That place is Benito Molina's restaurant Manzanilla. It's the unofficial gathering spot for the Ensenada food and wine crowd, the movers and shakers, that is. The later you stay, the better it gets. Closing time is just a formality. 

The night I was there I spotted Hugo d'Acosta, the superstar of Baja wine making, whom I hadn't seen in ages, he's so busy. Who else was there? Several winemakers, an artisanal cheese producer, seafood distributors, a chef about to open a restaurant, an artist bringing Molina a stash of the Mexican green huazontle and more. It's like a weekly networking session, greased by good food and wine.

Molina was in the kitchen dealing with a whole sturgeon he had picked up at the local fish market. That turned up in the first course, hot crostini topped with the fish, tomato, green chile, garlic and herbs.

And it appeared again as sturgeon two ways, half the thin slices topped with capers, onion and vinegar, the rest with green chile and soy sauce.

Not until the end did Molina swerve from his passion for seafood to send out a meaty dish called tongue, stomach and hoof. This soft stew of beef parts under a strip of fresh pasta was hard to tackle after so much food.

The previous course had been just as rich--corvina with huitlacoche risotto and fresh radish salsa.

Molina had made the risotto with Morelos rice, a short, plump-grained Mexican rice that he says is just as good for risotto as arborio. The salsa was a tribute to his mother, a native of the state of Campeche where radishes are common. 

In between were endless plates of oysters and clams, smoked and raw. Fresh sardines had been cured two ways: with salt, vinegar and garlic and with chile serrano. They were partnered with a mound of the thick cultured cream called jocoque.

Molina also sent out squid in a roasted beet sauce with lime and orange juices, fresh ginger and habanero chile.  And cabrilla, a type of sea bass with Swiss chard and poblano chiles. And a bowl of smoked clams with bacon and potatoes in creamy saffron sauce, a sort of Ensenada style clam chowder.

He topped locally raised abalone with a spicy tomato sauce. And paired grilled mackerel and sardines--a lot of sardines were in that day's catch, obviously--with shiso from the gardens of Laja restaurant in the wine country. And presented a clam topped with gorgonzola and sitting in tarragon butter (above).

After all this, there still was a cheese plate to deal with and a platter of desserts including mango blended with whipped cream, a "fallen" chocolate cake and cookies topped with dulce de mango.

The wines were Vinas Pijoan Silvana 2008, which blends Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier; an Estacion Porvenir 2008 blend of Palomino and Chenin Blanc and Pijoan's Domenica 2007, which combines Grenache, Petit Sirah and Cabernet Sauvignon. 

The mezcal?  By that stage, nobody cared where it came from. We just headed for a taxi because in only a few hours we had to start out on another day's eating marathon.

Restaurante Manzanilla, 139 Teniente Azueta, Ensenada, B.C., Mexico. Tel: (646) 175-7073.

Taking a Chance to Eat Tacos

My friends insist that Tijuana is dangerous, ugly, scary. That I'm unwise to go there, and they would never take such a chance. 

Not having spent any time in Tijuana, they have no idea what it's really like. All they know is what they read, and the press focus is crime (there's none at home?), not places like Tacos Varios La Cacho.

La Cacho is a Tijuana neighborhood, and tacos varios are tacos de guisado, tacos topped with the dishes of the day, spooned onto a layer of rice.

Bill Esparza (Street Gourmet LA) had spotted the shop on a previous trip and took several of us there to try it.

What we found was a pleasant, friendly, family-run business, a former street stand upgraded to an indoor cafe that opens onto the street. Very small, with just a couple of tables and counter seats on either side, it's well run and spotless.

Of the five tacos we ordered, my favorites were two I wouldn't have chosen if I had been on my own--lengua entomatada and chicharron en salsa verde.

The lengua (tongue) had been cooked in tomato sauce, a simple, well-flavored home style dish (at right).

I eat very little chicharron (pork skin cracklings), because I don't like fatty foods. But the flavor of the green sauce, a little tart and a little spicy, was so irresistible that I grabbed the last bite.

The other toppings were beef milanesa, tortitas de camaron (dried shrimp cakes) with nopales (below) and cheese with poblano chile strips.

"Otro concepto en tacos" (another taco concept), the flyer says, inviting people with demanding tastes to try the guisados. 

Up to 25 dishes are available daily, among them chicken mole, picadillo, marlin, shrimp with three cheeses, chicken stew, machaca and birria.

The shop also serves tostadas, burritos and full meals that include rice and beans, a choice of any three guisados, corn or flour tortillas and a fresh fruit drink.

When leaving, be sure to check out the shoe shop next door. It's run by a daughter of the family and amounts to a stylish gallery of footwear in a very small space.

Tacos Varios La Cacho, Calle Guanajuato 2374, Colonia Cacho, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico.  

Five-Star Street Food in Tijuana

A Westside restaurant proudly advertised its link to a world famous chef. But was he there cooking? Of course not. So how could this really be his food?

I didn't waste time checking it out. I'd rather eat in a place that doesn't put on such airs, where the owner/chef cooks while you watch, where the food is fresh, original and so exceptional in quality that it could shame the absentee star chef.

In other words, I would rather eat at Mariscos Ruben, a truck parked in a street in Tijuana.

On a recent Sunday morning, Mierta Elena Rogriguez Vega stood behind the counter, arranging jumbo cooked shrimp around the edge of a giant molcajete. Inside, she had put raw shrimp and raw callos de hacho, dense meaty scallops from Sinaloa that have to be hard, she said, or they're no good.

The seafood was swimming in lime juice, salt and brazenly hot chile tepin, a chile so prized that the price has risen to almost 2000 pesos (about $152) a kilo, she complained. Nevertheless, it is the only chile that is right for aguachile, the dish she was making.

Forget about menudo, this fierce, fresh seafood combo is the best eye-opener imaginable on a Sunday morning.

But Mariscos Ruben had much more to offer that day, like caguamanta con aleta de atun, which is manta ray soup with tuna fin.

If you are in really bad shape after a late Saturday night, this is the dish. It's easy to eat and comforting--until you spike it with hot salsa from the bottles lined up along the counter.  

Also on hand were raw mangrove cockles--pata de mula--from Baja waters.

Behind the scenes, a little mesquite grill turned out smoked marlin tacos and delicious Pismo clams au gratin--almejas gratinadas--smothered in Jack cheese.

There's fresh crab when available, and raw sea urchin in the summer, when the waters are warm and the urchins rise. "Un manjar para el paladar" (a treat for the palate), Mierta Elena said, almost smacking her lips.

Food trucks are big in Los Angeles, but Mariscos Ruben is one of very few in all of Mexico, according to Bill Esparza of Street Gourmet L.A., who led the Sunday morning trek there. 

The business started in  Mierta Elena's home town, Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, and moved to Tijuana 15 years ago.

The truck appears daily at the same spot. There's a little park just outside; shoe shine boys come by, and an itinerant singer might show up to earn a few pesos with a song or two. That's atmosphere you won't find in the pristine haunts of five-star chefs.

Mariscos Ruben. Open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the corner of Quintana Roo and Hidalgo, Tijuana, B.C., Mexico.

What's New Over the Border

Any trip over the border turns up much that is new--new retaurants, new projects, new wines and food.

Even the old seems new as it changes or you spot something you hadn't noticed before.

With Bill Esparza of Street Gourmet LA pointing the way, I saw and ate more than I would have believed in just three days. Our route went from Tijuana to Ensenada and the Guadalupe Valley wine region. 

At the open-air Mercado Miguel Hidalgo, which is Tijuana's central market, our group of five sipped super sweet foamy sugar cane juice, squeezed through a tall clanky machine on the sidewalk outside a juice and snack shop.

Then we roamed the stalls, marveling at produce that glowed with freshness and color.

Candy stalls tempted with a wealth of traditional sweets. I bought biznaga (cactus candy) so juicy that eating a slice was like sipping a drink.

That same stall had jamoncillo (milk fudge decorated with pecans) that was so soft and tender it might just have been made. Sugary whole oranges had been hollowed through a small hole and then candied.

Several stalls displayed cartons of honey that contained bits of the comb. The vendor said the honey he sold me came from somewhere near Mexicali.

The tortilleria in the market now offers tortillas made from corn masa blended with nopales. The tortillas are thin, dusky green and make great quesadillas. They were 90 cents a package.

John Rivera Sedlar of Rivera Restaurant in Los Angeles, who was in our group, tipped me off on Colima sea salt, and we both bought 5-pound sacks for $3.

The granules are large and fluffy, easy to scoop into pasta water, soups and anything else. And they'll add a nice crunch when you want that effect.

The salt has been iodized, as the word yodatada on the bag indicates. It's more flavorful and subtle than the ordinary table salt I keep on hand.

If you go to Ensenada with Bill, you will inevitably stop at La Guerrerense, the seafood cart at the corner of Alvarado and 1st Street.

From the assortment of ceviches and other seafood, I ordered the same sea urchin and lincod half and half tostada  as usual, this time topped with sliced Pismo clam and avocado.

And I tasted Bill's fish pate tostada, expecting a slab of conventional pate, but the topping was delicious smoked tuna in a creamy sauce.

Sabina Bandera Gonzalez, who runs this busy street cart, brought over a taste of her new pineapple salsa (the jar in the center of the photo). 

It's a bright orange concoction that's "puro pina" (all pineapple) combined with japones and pico de pajaro chiles, she said.

Heading into wine country, we stopped in San Antonio de Las Minas at Los Globos, where you can taste and buy regional cheeses and unusual jams such as strawberry-chocolate and a combination of peach, quince and fig.  

The change here is a spacious new wine room with tables where you can try a few sips.

The expansion makes more room for the lineup of cheeses. Standouts were a soft queso fresco and a cheese with basil, made in Real del Castillo.

The biggest change was at La Casa Vieja, which specializes in wines made with grapes from very old vines.

The big palapa where I tasted the current releases is the new home of the Argentine restaurant Las Brasas, which moved from a rustic outdoor structure on the other side of the tasting room. 

Now there's a wood burning oven for pizza and bread, a long open kitchen and what I guessed were locally made wooden tables and benches shaded by a thatched palapa roof, as if you were at a Mexican beach resort. 

The arrival of a pastry chef from Argentina has expanded the menu to include alfajores, an apple streusel dessert (at left in the photo), a chocolate roll filled with dulce de leche and pasta frola de membrillo, a lattice-topped pastry filled with quince paste (center).

The pasta frola was excellent. The best of the current wines is the 2008 Mission from vines that winemaker Tom Toscano estimates are 150 to 200 years old.

Moving on to Emeve, we sneaked in after hours to taste the 2009 Chardonnay, the winery's first. The juice was fermented in stainless steel and spent three months in contact with the lees in new French and Hungarian barrels.

It's light, bright and fresh--"muy frutoso" (very fruity), said Bertha Sosa of Emeve, who let us in and poured a few tastes.

The trip included extraordinary food at five top restaurants and taco stops in between. It was an eating marathon, worth every bite.