Yun and traveled to La Mision in Baja last week. We rented a house for a week near the beach. Baja is beautiful. Clean. Very green.
It turned out to be a fairly cold and wet week. Unusual for the area. Our house had three fire places and ample wood, but still not enough to keep us warm. The days weren’t so bad – but the nights were not very comfortable when one traveled too far away from the fire.
The week was mostly uneventful. Lots of rest. This was the plan.
La Mision is a small town just north of Ensenada, just south of Rosarita. The beautiful Valle de Guadalupe is just 20 minutes northeast from La Mision. This is Baja’s version of Napa Valley. Very green. Thousands of acres of vineyards and olive trees.
We had the chance to experience the vineyards on Tuesday. Not an easy thing to do as most are closed during the week (except by appointment). Even so, we found Vinos Fuentes, one of the few Mexican-owned vineyards in the valley.
We were invited in to sample their variety of 10 different reds. We had the place to ourselves. No charge. Plenty of tempranillos, garnachas (they strangely call grenache), pinot noirs, and nebiollos.
The wine was exceptional. I am intimately familiar with tempranillos and garnachas (having dedicated the last year to drinking them exclusively) and these grapes were certainly distinctive to the Spanish variety I have been limiting myself too. Maybe it’s the soil. They were great. Really different. We bought the maximum number allowed to bring across the border (plus some) along with some incredible tasting olive oils. The nebiollo was my favorite (by far).
Our experience at Vinos Fuentes was by far the highlite of the trip. After the wine tasting, we decided to stay at their restaurant for dinner. We were the evening’s (and week’s) only guests. It was awesome.
The chef and his assistant served us. We started with a really tasty soup and then the main course was a superb (and highly recommended by the chef) quail dish. I’ve never had quail before – but it was great. We were really pleased with the food and the wine (they didn’t charge us for the wine with dinner).
Even though our time in Valle de Guadalupe was great, it was too wet and too cold for us to want to stay the entire week. We decided to leave on Wednesday, heading north toward San Diego (through Tijuana). The wait and the border was brutal.