Judging wine by its origins not always a good idea

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/05/2019 (2313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I’m going home to Mexico to visit my parents,” my dear friend Malena said to me last summer. “And I’m going to bring you back some Mexican wine.”

I plastered a smile on my face and tried to look delighted. But inwardly, I shuddered. Mexican wine? There was no doubt in my mind it would be awful.

I kind of hoped she’d forget about it — I mean, what with travelling all that way and having family to focus on, surely wine for me would be extremely low on her priority list.

But I should have known better. We’ve been pals for 17 years, and in that time, I’ve never known her to forget to do anything she promised she would.

So last fall, she texted me and said, “When can we get together? I have that Mexican wine I want you to try!”

This time, because she wasn’t there, I rolled my eyes. Damn! How was I ever going to drink this stuff? Especially in her company? And especially if she really liked it?

But I love the girl, so we made plans for a few weeks hence. But then things changed, and I’m pretty sure there was snow on the ground before we finally got together. When she showed up at my door, bottle in purse, I figured I was sunk.

I was convinced it would be dreadful. I remembered the all-inclusive resorts we’d been at in a few Mexican locales, and how the wine in those places was completely undrinkable.

So it was with much trepidation that I accepted the wine from her. The label looked nice enough — classically elegant and sophisticated — and I thought, well, maybe there was a chance I wouldn’t hate it. But I didn’t really think so.

I proceeded to open the bottle, taking my time cutting the foil and inserting the corkscrew, chatting with Malena the whole time, trying to delay the inevitable. Finally, though, it couldn’t be avoided.

I popped the cork.

Or at least I tried to.

It came apart, crumbling halfway down. And that’s never a good sign. Usually it indicates the cork has dried out, which means it’s also highly likely the wine will be off. If it was, that was my way out of this mess. But I also didn’t want Malena to be disappointed since she’d gone to so much trouble to get this wine to me.

So I fussed and dug away at the cork, and finally forced what remained of it down into the wine. I figured a few cork remnants wouldn’t do this particular wine a disservice.

I poured a tiny bit into a glass — it was a deep purple-burgundy hue, which was a pleasant surprise. I sniffed, and was knocked out by hefty aromas of black fruit and spice. And then, still unconvinced and anticipating disaster, I took a sip.

It was delicious!

You could have knocked me over with a feather! I poured Malena a glass, put a few more ounces in mine, and settled in for what turned out to be a lovely visit with an exceedingly lovely wine — the 2014 Santo Tomas Cabernet Sauvignon.

But it took a while for me to figure out how Mexico could produce such a wonderful product. When I read the label in its entirety (the parts that weren’t in Spanish), then I understood. And while my excuse is I completely suck at geography — I was compelled to take it in Grade 10 at Neelin and got 54 per cent as a final grade and never took another geography course again — I do know that the Baja peninsula, which is part of Mexico, is, geographically speaking, a continuation of California, where most of my favourite wines come from. And the Santo Tomas winery is in Baja, the full name of which, I eventually discovered, is Baja California!

Malena and I had a good laugh about my paranoia when I ’fessed up after telling her, sincerely, that I loved the wine. And she said when she was back in Mexico for Christmas, she’d bring me another bottle of Santo Tomas. She was going to get the Cabernet again, because I liked it so much and it was her sister’s favourite, but she let it slip that she preferred the Santo Tomas Merlot. So I suggested she bring that varietal so I could try it. To my taste the Merlot was good, but the Cab was way better.

Anyway, long story short, I guess the lesson here is don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make assumptions. And don’t judge a wine until you taste it, regardless of where it’s from.

But don’t get me started on that wine from Iowa …